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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




\A^/b.J*v****-fi h^/t 



THE 



LANTERN OF DIOGENES 



N. B. HERRING, M. D. 



RALEIGH. N. C. 

E. M. UZZELL & CO.. PRINTERS AND BINDERS 

1910 



A* 



^ 



Copyright, 1910 

BY 

N. B. HERRING 



C BA27858 



TO 

THAT VILIFIED AND LITTLE UNDERSTOOD CLASS! 

THE SKEPTICS; 

AND TO THE HONEST AND TRUTH-LOVING 

TEACHERS OF RELIGION, 

"PURE AND UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD." 

THIS VOLUME 

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



"From the moment when a man desires to find the truth on one 
side rather than another, it is all over with him as a philosopher." — 
Harriet Martineatj. 

"The business of the scholar is the pursuit of truth. He is to 
find out and formulate the facts regardless of creeds, teachings of 
traditions, decrees of councils, or votes of assemblies. If he does 
less than this, he is a coward and a deserter. If he does more, he 
is a demagogue and a charlatan." — President Hyde of Bowdoin 
College. 

"As we are obliged to obey the divine law, though our will murmur 
against it, so we are obliged to believe the word of God, though 
our reason be shocked at it; therefore, the more absurd and incredi- 
ble any divine mystery is, the greater honor we do to God in believ- 
ing it." — Francis Bacon. 



CONTENTS 



BOOK I— PART I. 

CHAPTER I. P AGE . 

The Old Man lint the Cab 3 

CHAPTER II. 

The Schoolmaster 5 

CHAPTER III. 

"The Ghost" 7 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Philosopher 10 

CHAPTER V. 
Faith 13 

CHAPTER VI. 

Dialectics 15 

CHAPTER VII. 

Evidence 17 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The "Assertion" Analyzed 19 

CHAPTER IX. 

Mind and Brain 22 

CHAPTER X. 

Electricity 2G 

CHAPTER XI. 

Design 30 

CHAPTER XII. 

Hybrids and Physiological Pain 36 

PART II. 

"Hi; is Uncommonly Powerful in His Own Line, But it is 

Not the Line of a First-rate Man" 42 

BOOK II. 

I 'i:i PACE ()1 

CHAPTER I. 

The Journey Home 63 



vi Contents. 



CHAPTER II. PAGE. 

The Track in the Road 70 

CHAPTER III. 

The Wandering Jew 76 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Crusades 86 

CHAPTER V. 

The Crazy Shoemaker 90 

CHAPTER VI. 

Freedom and Necessity 96 

CHAPTER VII. 

Freedom and Necessity (Continued) 104 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Soue 112 

CHAPTER IX. 

Phenomena 121 

CHAPTER X. 
RESPONSD3ILITY 128 

CHAPTER XI. 

Secondary Causes 135 

CHAPTER XII. 

Boyhood 145 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Cause and Effect 150 

CHAPTER XIV. 

From Boyhood to Manhood 155 

CHAPTER XV. 

Manhood 161 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Matter and Spirit 169 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Divinity of Christ 176 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Judas Iscariot 179 



Contents. vii 



CHAPTER XIX. PAGE. 

Job 182 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Lesson 188 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Ax Interlude 193 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Teachings of Jesus 199 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Answer 209 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Going to Church 214 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Starting in Life 219 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Marriage 228 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Divorce 237 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Raising a Family 243 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
Managing a Family 252 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Old Age 258 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Sunday Morning 2G4 



Appendix 279 

Addendum 287 



INTRODUCTION. 



I have no apology to make for writing this book. It is the 
result of many years' study, and the offspring of the best 
thought of my life. If its readers do not like it, they are 
welcome to say what they please about it. 

Criticism is invited and abuse will not ruffle the temper of 
its author. 

Several scholars have read it, but no one has criticised it, 
and only one has abused it. Bishop Strange did himself poor 
service in his misapprehension of its intent and meaning. 
His letter and my answer follow. 

Elder P. D. Gold read it and said: "I have enjoyed read- 
ing your book, which is peculiar. I have been puzzled at 
times to know where you are and what you believe." 

Unlike Bishop Strange, he could not place me on one side 
or the other. He comprehended the intent of the book — that 
of presenting both sides of every question discussed, and leav- 
ing the verdict to the reader. 

It is easy to see from the Bishop's letter where the "peep 
behind the curtain" stuck him deepest. Poverty of resource 
has ever placed the church in a false light, and never has there 
been a time when it ran so severe a gantlet. The reader will 
do well to make no decision until he has read every line and 
digested the whole. Let him do as the Bishop started to do, 
when he balked. Let him stick a pin at the first rut — the first 
jolt he finds in the road, and not wait until he gets to his 
journey's end and then say, the road is had. 

If the good Bishop will spend another three days, or, boiler, 
three weeks, on that stumpy road where he found so many 
obstructions, and point out that particular stump where "There 
is no right and no wrong in the world," I will dynamite thai 



x Introduction. 

stump and fill up the hole. And if he will point out any 
passage in Ingersoll's writings where he inveighed against the 
"words and character" of Jesus, I will confess that I am a 
careless reader. 

Book I shows that I am not an admirer of Ingersoll, but I 
believe in "giving the devil his due"; for — 

"Bad as he is, the devil may be abused, 
Falsely charged and causelessly accused ; 
When men, unwilling to be blamed alone, 
Shift off the crimes on him which are their own." 

A prominent lawyer of Richmond, Ky., writes : "To me, 
your book has been a source of inspiration along certain lines. 
I feel more than repaid by a hasty and, to me, unsatisfactory 
reading. I recall the fact that your style has the happy amal- 
gam of Miltonic sonorous English and the incisiveness of a 
chancery brief. 

"I notice you ask for my criticism. Am I an Edinburgh 
Review, and are you to be the George Gordon Byron? No, 
no, 'excuse me' — do not excruciate me upon this crux of the 
Krino." 

Relative to Book I or Part I of the Lantern, he writes : 
"It seems to me that this part of the book might, with pro- 
priety, to say the least, be expunged. I fail to realize in 
ideas its logical connection with either the 'Jew' or the subse- 
quent career of the school-teacher." 

Singular as it is, the more a man knows, the more difficult 
it becomes to present a subject in language that can be easily 
comprehended; yet it seems strange that careful and scholarly 
readers can make such egregious mistakes in the interpretation 
of what seems to be a very simple matter. One places me on 
the side of the agnostic, because the arguments on that side 
appeal more strongly to him, while the other objects to Book 
I or Part I of the Lantern, because he cannot see the connection 
between that and the second part of the book. 



Introduction. xi 

The Schoolmaster, a deist, contends with two antagonists — 
Ingersoll, an atheist, and the "Jew," who is a Christian. 
Atheism is combated in his argument with Ingersoll; Christi- 
anity in that with the "Wanderer." 

Book I shows Mr. Eliot's belief in God; Book II, his unbe- 
lief in the Christian religion; and the whole book shows that 
he was a Unitarian. 

If some deductions from scriptural texts jar upon the timid, 
pious mind, or certain conclusions drawn from the admissions 
cf the adversaries of Orthodoxy vex the wiseacre, let the reader 
remember that simple fairness demands that he reach his 
verdict only after careful consideration of all the arguments 
based upon the evidence. If he endorse the witness, he must 
not repudiate the testimony, and as Q. K. Philander Doesticks 
implies in his "apology" for writing Pluri-bus-tah , "Si stulti 
pactum facias, stulti stipendium tibi accipiendum sit." 

Take the case and say how it is. 

1ST. B. Herrixg. 



BISHOP STRANGE'S LETTER. 



Bishop's House, 
Wilmington, N. C, September 5, 1906. 

My deae Dr. Herring: — I send you your book by express to-day. 
I have been reading it steadily and carefully for the past three days. 
I started with pencil and paper, taking notes, to commend, to criticise, 
and even to answer some of the positions of the Schoolmaster. Then, 
I concluded to read the book straight through and get its impression 
as a whole. I have done that, my dear Doctor ; and the impression 
is so sad and terrible that I will attempt no particular criticism nor 
reply. 

In the early part of your book you say that conscience is no guide 
at all in treading the labyrinth of life; and, later on, you even urge 
that conscience is the cause of sin. You discredit Faith, telling men 
that it is just as likely to lead them to superstition and misery as 
to truth and happiness. The main part of the book is a strong argu- 
ment for the doctrine of absolute Necessity in all creation and a denial 
of human responsibility. There is no right and no wrong in the 
world ; the murderer and ravisher are not to be blamed or punished ; 
and the man is not to be praised who gives his life to relieve human 
suffering and to make this earth a sweeter, brighter, better place. 
They had to do what they did ; and so there is no blame nor praise. 

You make Holy Scripture a magic book, penned by the hand of 
omniscient God, with every "t" crossed and every "i" dotted by Him ; 
and, then, you sneer at the position in mind and morals which such 
an interpretation of the Inspiration of Scripture places us. You 
make the great drama of Job a jest, and you excuse the treachery of 
Judas. 

Your chapter on the teachings of Jesus is the bitterest and most 
unfair arraignment of the words and character of the noblest man in 
human history that I have read in literature, with the possible excep- 
tion of Ingersoll. How can you define Jesus as a man who "deserts 
his best friends and forsakes those who are in sympathy with him to 
grovel with the ciiii'iillc" ; whose teaching is "the inculcation of selfish- 
ness," and whose advice is "to disregard the duties of this present 
world"? 



xiv Bishop Strange 's Letter. 

You finish your book with a horrible sermon, as if it were the best 
sermon that Christianity can give, which unreservedly declares that 
all the heathen are tortured forever in hell ; which declares that the 
distinguishing difference between Christianity and Materialism is, in 
regard to the end of man, that the one consigns most men to the 
everlasting tortures of hell, and the other consigns all men to worse 
tortures in a deeper hell. Ah, yes, Doctor, as I read your book, I see 
the ONE, Almighty, self-existent, all-wise Being creating this world 
with a purpose, forcing all men through life necessarily to this pur- 
pose; and that the end and meaning of this purpose is HELL — hell, 
flaming, torturing hell for all men, but — but — an infinitesimal few 
who, despite their reason and their moral sense, simply declare that 
they believe in Jesus and feel that they are converted by the Cross. 

It is not a sufficient answer, Doctor, to say that you have stated 
only one side and that you have tried to find answers for the other 
side. I do not think, as a matter of fact, that any man can answer 
his own real arguments. Here it is so evident which is your side ; it 
is argued out so much more clearly and fully that men follow you in 
the argument, unless they, as few do, have the intellect and learning 
to argue for themselves. There is much fine, original matter in the 
book; many true, beautiful, and wise things; but you can give them 
to the world in another setting. Pardon me, if I have been too 
frank, Doctor; but we have been so in all our talk; and I agreed to 
be that when I took the book. 

With good wishes for you and Mrs. Herring, 

Sincerely yours, 

Robert Strange. 



REPLY TO BISHOP STRANGE 



My dear Bishop : — The book came safely by express, your letter 
following next day. 

I am disappointed in your letter. You have not done yourself 
justice. 

Queasiness is no substitute for argument, and hypercriticism never 
yet bettered an evil. 

I asked for bread, and you have given me what I already had — 
a stone. Or, rather, I asked for a fish, and you gave me a serpent. 
The stone I easily picked up as I journeyed through the Sacred 
Volume; but the serpent — oh, the serpent! When will he cease to 
crawl on his belly and eat dust? 

You assume more than the arguments justify. If the evidence is 
stronger on the materialistic side than it is on the other, why should 
you assume that I am more on the one than the other? 

I did my best on both sides, and nothing but poverty of evidence 
kept me from answering the Schoolmaster satisfactorily to you. I 
called on the brightest scholars and greatest theologians of this age; 
and I am proud to say that I have been treated with the utmost 
courtesy, and given all the aid at their command. I stopped writing 
the book a whole year because I could not answer some of the 
Schoolmaster's questions, nor find a man equal to the task. In way- 
off Boston I, at last, found a doughty champion of the Cross who, 
with a boldness made of knowledge, and a finesse to adorn Machiavel, 
came to my rescue and bridged the gap. 

Borden P. Bowne's letter is incorporated in the book, word for 
word and letter for letter. It is a masterpiece of strategy, steganog- 
raphy, and scholarship — a genuine sesqtt&pedaHa verba. He calls it 
Transcendental Empiricism. Whatever that means, it is an answer, 
and enabled me to go on with the hook. 

To Bishop Candler I sent the chapters "Job" and "Judas," asking 
for a reply. lie did his best, and was exceedingly courteous in 
his manner and style. It is in the chapter headed, "The Lesson." 
and breathes the spirit of tine Christian humility. If "weak," as 
you intimated when we read the Chapters together, it is in BtTOng 

ii 



xvi Reply to Bishop Strange. 

contrast with yours where you complain that I "make the great 
drama of Job a jest, and excuse the treachery of Judas." 

If the argument against conscience as a guide be fallacious, you 
ought to have shown the fallacy. Your criticism of my book is the 
same that Bruno, Servetus, and Savanarola underwent. When the 
Church had civic power the inquisition was the evidence, and the 
fagot and torture-chamber the argument; it is the "bitterest and 
most unfair arraignment." 

If the bible is not the word of God with every "t" crossed and 
every "i" dotted by Him, it is only a human document, and should 
be treated as other human documents. In a recent defense of the 
bible and the Christian religion the writer says : "No man is fit to 
speak about religion who reviles the word of God. // he knew it to 
be false, he who reviles a book that the best people in the world 
revere is a bad man, with the instincts of a blackguard." 

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," is Scripture. It is neither 
"magic" nor legerdemain, but a command of Almighty God — the 
father of Jesus Christ. It is just as much His word as "Thou shalt 
do no murder." Yet it has been abrogated by human legislation — 
yea, been reviled and repudiated by the Christian Church. 

Science and philosophy are both failures in accounting for the uni- 
verse. Human reason balks at the unknowable. Revelation as por- 
trayed in the Old, and elucidated in the New Testament, explains 
everything. A Sovereign* "God determines upon His own acts, fore- 
seeing what the results will be in the free acts of His creatures, and 
so He determines those results." 

*"From eternity God foresaw all the events of the universe as fixed 
and certain." 

Orthodox Christianity as taught by the Roman Catholic Church, 
and many schismatic sects since the days of the Apostles, is sum- 
marized in the "Lantern of Diogenes" and this summary gives you a 
feature of the "scheme of Salvation," stripped of its draperies, its 
gildings, and its canonicals. It is the same portrait painted by 
Tertullian and later on by Calvin. They were artists drawing from 
nature. 

Horrible, my dear Bishop, as this picture appears to yon, it 
accounts for the universe and everything in it. It goes beyond the 



♦Strong's Theology 



Reply to Bishop Strange. xvii 

limitations of science, and leads where philosophy has lost its path. 
It tells you why idiots are born to intelligent parents. It accounts 
for the pains of parturition ; it tells why people come into the world 
blind, deaf, and dumb ; why monstrosities exist, and why people are 
sent to hell. 

Orthodox Christianity — that is, bible or true Christianity — declares 
that God, for the salvation of a few — and a very few at that — of 
riffraff Jews, hud His own son murdered; that He loved Jacob and 
hated Esau before they were born; that He is Sovereign, that He 
overlooks the sparrows, that His providence extends even over sin ; 
and that, "He blinds the eyes and hardens the hearts of sinful men ; 
and sends them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie and 
be damned." 

You will doubtless say that this is not true; that it is the "bitterest 
and most unfair arraignment" ; but, my dear Bishop, it is bible doc- 
trine, and it is endorsed by Jesus Christ himself. Turn to the fourth 
chapter of Mark and read it, and note especially the 11th and 12th 
verses. Is there anything in the Old Testament more horrible than 
that sermon, coming from the loving lips of Jesus? 

"Wicked men are called the rod, the staff, the ax, the saw, in his 
hand; and are therefore moved by him, as these instruments are by 
the hand of him who uses them." 

Is not this sermon of Jesus, quoted by Mark, a vindication of the 
Old Testament Scriptures? Did he want that multitude saved? Did 
he treat the only true friend (John the Baptist) he ever had as the 
Golden Rule commands? Was Peter, his right-hand man, on whom 
he founded his church, a high-toned gentleman? How about the 
Prodigal Son and his brother? Whose conduct did he approve, the 
Industrious Martha's or tin- lazy Mary's? Why should he commend 
the unjust steward who had robbed his employer? Tell me if it is 

jus/ to pay ;i laborer, for out' hour's work, as much as another tor a 

whole day. Why should ho go to a flg tree, out of season tor figs, 
and then curse it for being bare? 

( ;ii\ iiiism bas sioo.i the test from the day it was expounded by 
Jonathan EQdwards, and no man has yet answered It 

Now, wherein is my chapter on The Teachings of Jesus "hitter and 

unfair"? I have only used the evidence and drawn logical Conclu- 
sions from tie- same. On the other hand. 1 have endeavored t«» 



xviii Reply to Bishop Strange. 

palliate these horrible statements and excuse Omnipotence from the 
implication of evil. That I failed is only because the evidence is not 
there on which to build the argument. 

You have not read the book as the Schoolmaster read the bible. If 
the whole of anything is faulty, its parts, or at least some of its 
parts, are faulty. Dissection is the only means of getting at the 
structure of anything. If no part of a structure can be condemned, 
the ivhole certainly ought not to be condemned. Instead of analyzing 
the book as you purposed and as I desired, you throw up your hands 
in holy horror and accuse me of being on one side. 

Finally, as to that "horrible" sermon which is the closing chapter 
of the book. And before I say a word in defense of that sermon, 
allow me to quote two verses from what you must agree is the finest 
sermon ever preached on this earth : 

"Go in by the small gate. Broad and spacious is the road that 
leads to destruction, and those that go in by it are many; for small 
is the gate and narrow the way that leads to Life, and those that 
find it are few." 

In that "horrible" sermon we see science and philosophy, by 
their own confession, traveling at a rapid rate down the "broad 
and spacious road." Their inevitable goal is "destruction." 

"Hell — hell, flaming, torturing hell for all men, but — but — an 
infinitesimal few." Now, who said that — the Schoolmaster or Jesus 
Christ? 

The philosophy of materialism says all; the Sermon on the 
Mount lets off the few that "go through the small gate." No 
stronger argument was ever, nor ever can be, presented to the 
human mind for the acceptance of Christ. 

That horrid nightmare, "Hell," seems to affect you as the Leniu- 
rine Phantom affected Brutus at the battle of Philippi. 

Crapsey could not stand the immaculate conception, and you are 
horrified at the idea of hell. Thousands of men who call themselves 
Christians accept Darwin's theory of evolution which denies the Fall, 
and therefore does away with any lifting-up process. It is the same 
old wrangle that has existed from the earliest days of the Christian 
era. If this sermon is so horrible because it preaches hell, and tells 
you how to keep out of it. pray tell me what you think of the sermon 
Jesus preached to the multitude on the seashore. If you will give 



Reply to Bishop Strange. xix 

me one good reason for his preaching that sermon, I will agree to 
burn mine up and never open my mouth again on the subject of 
religion. 

My dear Bishop, you ought to read the book again, and read it 
as the Schoolmaster read the bible. Had you read the preface care- 
fully you would have seen that both the "Sermon" and the "Teach- 
ings of Jesus" are legitimate. And if you will read the bible account 
of Job and Judas, you will see that I have neither made a "jest" of 
the one nor "excused the treachery" of the other. 

If an Omnipotent God orders anything done, the human instru- 
ments selected to carry out His orders are not to be charged with the 
acts committed. If Christ was a mortal, if he was the son of Joseph 
and Mary, born in the good old-fashion way, he was crucified by 
the Romans. If he was the Son of God, he was crucified by the 
direction of his Father. If you deny this, I will prove it by his own 
testimony : 

"As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father ; and I lay 
down my life for the sheep. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it 
down myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to 
take it again. This commandment have I received from the Father." 

According to Matthew, Christ predicted his death, entombment, 
and resurrection : 

"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's 
belly, so shall the Son of Man be three nights in the heart of the 
earth." 

Christ told his disciples that he must go into Jerusalem and suffer 
many things and be crucified. He told Peter, James, and John not 
to publish the details of his transfiguration "until the Son of Man 
be risen from the dead." He said: 'The Son of Man shall be be- 
trayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him." He said that 
he "came not to he ministered onto, tral i<» minister, and to give his 
life, a ransom for many." lie fell on his face and prayed: "O my 
Father, if it he possible, let this cup pass from me: Nevertheless, 
net as I will, hut .is Thou wilt." 

When one of his disciples would have resisted the capture. Jesus 

said thnt he could, by praying t<» his Father, obtain for his defense 
"more than twelve legions of angels," and added: "I»ut how. then, 
shall the Scriptures he fulfilled that it must be?" 



xx Reply to Bishop Strange. 

Moses and Elias talked to Jesus about his "decease which he 
should accomplish at Jerusalem." He said to his disciples : "Be- 
hold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the 
prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished." 

According to Luke, Christ predicted that he should be delivered to 
the Gentiles, mocked, spit on, scourged, and crucified. When Pontius 
Pilate told Jesus that he had power to crucify or release him, Jesus 
answered that the Roman had no power except it was given from 
above. Everything that was done was done in order "that the 
Scriptures might be fulfilled." Take this proposition from the New 
Testament, and the scheme of salvation is gone. 

If what happened could have been prevented by the Romans or 
by the Jews, then the New Testament is worthless. It is too late in 
this day of intelligent thought to continue the arguments of the 
Middle Ages. Could religion have made progress along with science 
and literature, our sacred books would have kept pace with other 
changes; and instead of a bible suited to barbarians, we would have 
one now in accord with civilized life. Thomas Jefferson, instead of 
being preached into hell for selecting the good and ignoring the bad, 
would be counted a benefactor of the human race. Ingersoll, for 
condemning the bloodthirstiness of Jehovah, and preaching the moral 
precepts of Jesus, would never have been stigmatized as an infidel. 
Stephen Girard, whose philanthropic monument to the orphan chil- 
dren of Philadelphia is doing more real good than all the churches of 
that city, would be canonized instead of doomed to the Christian's 
deepest hell. 

Yes, my clear Bishop, you will have to get rid of your witness. The 
testimony is too strong, the evidence too clear for the Crapseys, the 
Coxes, and other strong men in the Church. Set aside your witness 
or accept his testimony, as the Catholics do. And if God has told 
you to give diseased meat to strangers or sell it to aliens, do that. 
All the horrible commands laid down in Leviticus and Deuteronomy 
are as binding to-day, and upon us, as they were then upon the Jews, 
for he says : "This shall be a statute forever unto them throughout 
their generations." 

A quotation from a "Schoolmaster" of the olden time, with an 
answer by a great ecclesiastic, will fitly close my apology for the 
"bitterest and most unfair arraignment" : 



Reply to Bishop Strange. xxi 

ONAN. 

"The race of Onan exhibits great singularities. The patriarch 
Judah, his father, lay with his daughter-in-law, Tamar the Phoeni- 
cian, in the highroad; Jacob, the father of Judah, was at the same 
time married to two sisters, the daughters of an idolater; and de- 
luded both his father and father-in-law. Lot, the granduncle of 
Jacob, lay with his two daughters. Saleum, one of the descendants 
of Jacob and Judah, espoused Rahab the Canaanite, a prostitute. 
Boaz, son of Saleum and Rahab, received into his bed Ruth the 
Midianite; and was great-grandfather of David. David took away 
Bathsheba from the warrior Uriah, her husband, and caused him to 
be slain, that he might be unrestrained in his amour. Lastly, in 
the two genealogies of Christ, which differ in so many points, but 
agree in this, we discover that he descended from this tissue of 
fornication, adultery, and incest. 

"Nothing is more proper to confound human prudence ; to humble 
our limited minds, and to convince us that the ways of Providence 
are not like our ways. The reverend father Dom Calmet makes this 
reflection, in alluding to the incest of Judah with Tamar, and to the 
sin of Onan, spoken of in the 38th chapter of Genesis : 'Scripture,' 
he observes, 'gives us the details of a history which on the first 
perusal strikes our minds as not of a nature for edification ; but the 
hidden sense which is shut up in it is as elevated as that of the 
mere letter appears low to carnal eyes. It is not without good 
reasons that the Holy Spirit has allowed the histories of Tamar, 
of Rahab, of Ruth, and of Bathsheba to form a part of the genealogy 
of Jesus Christ." 

This ancient "Schoolmaster" then comments as follows upon the 
answer of Dom Calmet : 

"It might have been well if Dom Calmet had explained these 
sound reasons, by which we might have cleared up the doubts and 
appeased the scruples of all honest and timorous souls who are 
anxious to comprehend how the Supreme Being, the Creator of 
worlds, could be bom in ;i Jewish village, of a race of plunderers 
and prostitutes. This mystery, which is not less Inconceivable than 

other mysteries. w;is assuredly worthy the explanation of so able a 

commentator." 

Sincerely, your friend. 

N. B. IIusimnc. 



BOOK I 



THE 

LANTERN OF DIOGENES, 



PART I. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE OLD MAN IN THE CAR. 

On a warm afternoon in the month of June, 1889, an old 
man was traveling at a high rate of speed, in a gorgeous palace 
car, on one of the great trunk railways of the United States. 
He was a good distance from home, and was returning from a 
tour of inspection of the schools of the North and West. He was 
the only passenger in the car, and, his journey being a long 
and tedious one, he had provided against the ennui and monot- 
ony of travel by supplying himself with some of the current 
literature of the day. He was sociable in his nature and habits, 
and preferred the society of his fellow-man to any other enjoy- 
ment, but when alone and comfortable he never failed to have 
at hand some book or periodical from which he received in- 
struction, or whiled away the time between his more active 
engagements. His hair was short cropped and white with age. 
His face was wrinkled and his back bowed, but his eye was 
bright and his broad forehead indicated thought. His dress 
was plain but neat, and his spectacles pushed up on his forehead 
showed that he did not need them in reading. Tie had been 

near-sighted in youth, and wore glasses mainly to see at a dis- 
tance. Age had flattened his eyeballs, and the focus of light 
had come in the easy range of ordinary men in their prime. 
He wore glasses now more from habit than from any benefit 
lie derived from them. lie had been a -indent from early 
youth, and the acquisition of knowledge bad been the one absorb- 
ing passion of hie life. He bad bad (lie benefil of the finest 
educational facilities of his day, and bad been graduated «rith 
the highest honors from a famous university of I lie South, lie 



4 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

began at an early day to examine critically his own knowledge, 
and, finding much of it faulty, lie inquired into the methods of 
teaching, and to his surprise and chagrin, found them crude, 
inefficient, and ill adapted to the requirements of the age. 

His Alma Mater, which at one time he worshiped as a 
tutelary goddess, became in later years a fetich of priggism 
where the smatterer bowed and the pedant strove for the honors 
of a Machiavelian sophistry. In every department of human 
learning which he investigated he found the same superficiality, 
the same gloss and tinsel. The science and art of agriculture 
were in the most primitive condition, and the laws which gov- 
erned the growth of plants understood by few. The physi- 
cian's greatest ambition was to "smell like a doctor," and his 
armamentarium consisted in murdered technicalities of which 
he knew little more than his deluded patrons. The lawyer 
would speak knowingly of the Lex talionis, while the preacher 
quoted Scripture and twisted it to suit his own church and 
creed. Some of the best mechanics had spent much of their 
time in working at perpetual motion, and the alchemist's dream 
still haunted the chemist, while the philosopher's stone engrossed 
the attention of nearly every class above the common laborer. 
But, of all men, the teacher was found most sadly wanting in 
useful information; and so deeply grounded was his prejudice, 
and so bent upon following the ruts of his predecessors, that the 
caustic lines of Boileau became a fitting animadversion upon 
the farcical purism of the average school-master: 

"Brim full of learning, see the pedant stride! 
Bristling with horrid Greek, and puffed with pride, 
A thousand authors he in vain has read, 
And with their maxims stuffed his empty head ; 
And thinks that without Aristotle's rule 
Eeason is blind, and common sense a fool." 




THE SCHOOLMASTER. 



The Schoolmaster. 5 

CHAPTER II. 

THE SCHOOLMASTER. 

To be a schoolmaster in the South prior to the war, and 
more especially about the year 1840, was looked upon as an 
admission on the part of the teacher that he was good for little 
else. A few noted exceptions might be found here and there, 
where by long and persistent use of the rod a sort of savage 
respect had attached itself to particular individuals; but, as a 
rule, when the Southern gentleman wanted a teacher, he sent 
to Massachusetts or Connecticut, as he did for his ax-helves, 
believing that no good could come out of this modern Nazareth 
save a cotton bale, a nigger, or a mule. This phantasm of the 
Southern mind had built a temple of wisdom in New England, 
and, as true knowledge could be obtained from no other source, 
the Yankee schoolmaster came periodically to keep the free 
and "entered" schools of the South. Ichabod Crane, Irving's 
hero of "Sleepy Hollow," is a type of the New England gaber- 
lunzies who migrated annually to North Carolina to instruct 
the young "Tarheel" in the mysteries of foreign slang. 

"I kotch it," I have heard one say as he played ball with the 
children when school was out. They brought with them an 
abundance of "waters Lethean," of which the tow-headed urchins 
drank copious draughts; and hence "your Epimenides, your 
somnolent Peter Klaus, since named Rip Van Winkle." 

Notwithstanding the unsavory atmosphere in which the native 
teacher was compelled to live, this old gentleman decided in 
early manhood to devote his life-work to the instruction of 
Others. With an honesty unknown in the other professions, 
ho pursued the line of truth as far as he could trace it, with- 
out thanks and with little reward, lie passed through the 
usual stages of hopeful optimism, despairing pessimism, Lndif- 
ferenl submission, and finally in his ohl age entered the Elysian 
fields of true philosophy. At middle age he had learned a 
lesson whieh few ever learn, that is, the limit of his own capac- 
ity. After thai he never attempted impossibilities. He Baw 
that, the possible was so much neglected thai life was too short 
to waste time after the Impossible. He had learned that the 



6 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

human mind could never attain to the limits of all knowledge, 
and for years he had only endeavored to instill into the minds 
of his pupils some of the fundamental principles. He made 
it a rule of his profession to correct error rather than to teach 
truth, believing that negative evidence — that is, a statement of 
what a thing is not — is more valuable than dogmatic assertion. 
The modern method of "pushing" at school, of going through 
and over books, of cramming, learning rules by heart, and recit- 
ing by rote, he repudiated as a waste of time and an injury 
to the understanding. 

As a man, he was somewhat after the order of Rousseau's 
portraiture of his Spanish friend, De Altuna : 

"The idea of vengeance could no more enter his head than the 
desire of it could proceed from his heart. His mind was too great 
to be vindictive, and I have frequently heard him say, with the 
greatest coolness, that no mortal could offend him. He was the only 
man I ever knew whose principles were not intolerant. It was not 
of the least consequence to him whether his friend was a Jew, a 
Protestant, a Turk, a bigot, or an atheist, provided he was an honest 
man." 

Heteroclite, bizarre, sui generis, or some such appellative, 
appeared to befit him both as a teacher and a citizen, and 
accordingly he was known in his community as an oddity. 
Even as a young man, and at college, he was considered queer, 
and having no double name, he adopted the middle initial G., 
conferred upon him by his college mates on account of his fan- 
cied resemblance to a ghost. He ever afterward signed his name 
John G. Eliot, and sometimes simply "Ghost Eliot." His 
pupils nicknamed him "The Old Stive," but whether he ever 
heard of that is questionable, as he commanded the respect of 
all classes. He was known within the radius of a large circle, 
as "The Ghost," but to his face he was always respectfully 
spoken to as Mr. Eliot. "When did you see the Ghost?" was 
often the question of one friend to another. 



"The Ghost 



CHAPTER III. 



Mr." Eliot taught by precept and example, and while he had 
for years endeavored to instill into the minds of his pupils the 
fundamental principles of all knowledge, he had watched the 
teachings of others, not only in the schoolroom, hut from the 
pulpit, the rostrum, and the secular press. Speculative philos- 
ophy had for many years engaged his leisure moments, and he 
had studied with a close scrutiny the various theories of philos- 
opher, minister, and statesman. He had found from expe- 
rience and observation that truth lay buried in the inner kernel 
of all things, and could only be found by dissection and analy- 
sis; that the pericarps or husks of philosophy alone were seen 
by the multitude, and that to get the pure gold the mine must 
be sapped to the bottom. He analyzed the human mind, and 
divided it into compartments embracing truth and error. He 
compared the psychical states of men and brutes, and found 
them so closely allied as to bear the semblance of kinship, yet 
so far apart that no theory of descent has been able to bridge 
the gap. The marvelous intellect of Darwin, the keen logic 
of Spencer, the profound thought of Helmholtz, and the pains- 
taking studies of Haeckel, have never yet discovered the "miss- 
ing link" in the chain of cause and effect which attempts to 
bind man to a common origin Avith the brute. Evolution in its 
broad sense he admitted, as every true philosopher is compelled 
to admit, but the theory of man's descent he found to be based 
upon pure assumption, as all theories concerning God, the uni- 
e, and t be devil are based upon postulation. En his philos- 
ophy be assumed nothing; but, taking facte as they are pre- 
sented to the minds of all thinkers, be reasoned out a philosophy 
of his own — a creed, as if were, in which he could find no fad 
in the universe running counter to bis theories. 

He made a circle around every living creature, and called if 
the "circle of the finite." Beyond this circle lay the infinite, 
and into this infinity he found that man was ever prying, ever 

trying to project himself. 



8 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

The lower animals, so far as lie could see, completed their 
whole existence here. Their distinctive faculty, as well as the 
common faculties of man and brute, remained satisfied in this 
circumscribed area — never pushing the brute to a hope beyond, 
nor dragging him with a fear of the far-off and unsettled 
future. Man alone he found delving into the mysteries of the 
infinite, yet never satisfied, because of his intruding fears and 
doubts. He sought for a reason why man should trouble him- 
self for that which appeared to be so far beyond his grasp, and 
in settling this point he compared by analysis the human and 
the brute mind, noting particularly the distinctive character- 
istics of each. The physical senses, appetites, and the passions 
he found common to both, with the balance in favor of the 
brute as regards development. Especially sight, hearing, and 
smelling, he found to be more acute in the lower animals; and 
that the distinctive faculty called instinct — a free gift to the 
brute, as reason is a free gift to man — unerring as a guide, 
incapable of improvement, perfect, and of which man can have 
no conception — a faculty which appears to be a substitute for 
reason, so closely allied, yet so far apart from reason that it 
sets a barrier between man and beast which no theory of mate- 
rialism can overthrow. From this faculty of instinct he found 
no dependencies; therefore the brute is without hope, without 
charity, without faith. Reverence, veneration, knowledge of 
good and evil, civilization, progress, religion, belong to man 
alone. Instinct enables the honey-bee to make its comb, the 
horse to find its way home through the mazes and intricacies 
of a virgin forest, the beaver to make its dam, and the carrier- 
pigeon to direct its flight; but instinct never profits by expe- 
rience, never teaches one generation how to avoid the mistakes 
of a preceding one, never educates youth nor protects age. Cir- 
cumscribed, limited to the finite, bound with a Promethean- 
chain to this clifted-stone, it has no means of extending itself 
beyond that tether. Infinity is a realm of which instinct has 
no conception, and the spirit of the beast must end with the 
physical forces which bring it into existence. 

How different with men ! "Indued with intellectual sense 
and souls," they stand out, reach out, grasp all, and long for 
more. 



"The Ghost" 9 

The circle of the finite cannot contain the mind of man. 

Reason, with its dependencies, enables him to traverse the 
infinite, to project himself beyond the pale of the known into 
the regions where truth, error, happiness, and misery reign 
supreme; where time and space have no beginning and no end- 
ing, where mutation ceases, and where reform is impossible ; 
for it is written : 

"He that is unjust, let hiin be uujust still ; and he that is filthy, 
let him be filthy still ; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous 
still ; and he that is holy, let him be holy still." 



10 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PHILOSOPHER. 

Enthroned upon the highest pinnacle of the infinite sits 
Reason, crowned with the tiara of Justice, clad in the purple 
robes of Faith, Hope, and Charity, having for its footstool 
Reverence, Veneration, Conscience, Worship, Superstition, and 
Pear. 

Upon this couch Religion was born, and at this altar it bends 
its knee. It is pure and Godlike as it approaches the crown, 
low and groveling as it descends to the foot. Without reason, 
the dependent faculties could not exist; without these faculties, 
religion would be impossible. With reason alone, man would 
be simply an intellectual machine, wound up by the hand of 
Time, to run its course without pleasure, without pain, with- 
out hope or fear; stoical, never in error, never in doubt, doing 
no good, doing no harm — progressing forever in the line of 
truth — simply to know, to know until he knew it all, and then 
what? Ask the Pantheist. To be a man, then, and a reli- 
gionist requires a combination of intellect and its dependent 
faculties, but, astounding as the statement may be, it is never- 
theless true that religion has ignored its fountainhead, and 
seeks to maintain its existence by feeding from these inferior 
and dependent sources. This it is which enables infidelity to 
flaunt its florid rhetoric before the dazzled gaze of ignorance. 
This it is that shames the honest seeker after truth, and causes 
his ears to tingle, and his cheek to burn at the irreverent propa- 
gandism he hears in the pulpit. This it is which forces the 
philosopher back upon his own resources, and causes him to 
ignore the teachings of priest and infidel alike. 

As the prime object of all teaching is to influence conduct, 
to give lessons through any medium whereby the individual 
may be influenced to act to his own detriment can never come 
within the pale of true education, and as such should not be 
encouraged. To get at the truth of any matter, we have but 
one unerring 'guide. The senses are proverbially delusive, 
human desires are but a mockery, aud that ever-paraded moni- 
tor, conscience, sways the human heart to and fro upon the 



The Philosopher. 11 

billows of life without rudder or ballast, driving one in this 
direction, another in that, approving in one what it condemns 
in another, and blinding all with the beautiful phantasmagoria 
of self-approval. "Were it left to the senses, the world would 
still be flat, and imagination would again place it upon the 
coiled serpent. 

"There is a way which seeineth right unto a man ; but the end 
thereof are the ways of death." 

Our desires are still less to be trusted. We live under the 
influence of so many artificial stimuli that those instincts which 
to the brute are unerring guides, become in man ignes fatui, 
leading us in devious paths, and often stranding us in the mud. 
That divine gift which alone separates man from the brute, and 
through which all the grand achievements of the world have 
been accomplished ; that which enables him to think on abstract 
subjects and profit by experience; that which is the only image 
of God in man — reason, and reason alone, is the guide to truth. 
If man is ever to be judged by appearances, and have sentence 
passed upon him through the medium of sense, his case will 
remain hopeless; but when enlightened philosophy shall formu- 
late a creed in accordance with the highest attributes of human- 
ity, the veil of charity will then cover up the ugly places in 
man's nature, and fit him for the exercise of that love which 
is so much spoken of and so little realized. As well might we 
attempt to get at the chemical composition and therapeutic 
effect of a sugar-coated pill by looking at it, as to essay an 
analysis of the hidden springs in human nature by looking at 
man. His composition is so intricate, his make-up so elabo- 
rate, and his attributes so varied, that anatomists, physiolo- 
gists, and psychologists, with all their studies of body, function, 
and soul, have failed to satisfy even themselves <>n tin 1 points 
of their most painstaking Labor. 

This unsatisfactory result may be traced i<> two essential 
errors: one, of the manner in which the investigation is made; 
the other, in the means used to make it. The mathematician 
in working ou1 ;i problem starts with i ho premises and Labors 
to the end with one instrument. Eopes, fears, preconceived 
opinions, and appearances do not enter into the effort. Reason 



12 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

alone battles with the difficulty, and, if the result comes out 
unsatisfactorily, he does not abandon his means, but with the 
same reviews his work and detects the error; or, if there is no 
error, acquiesces in the result without quibbling for an answer 
that he thought, or expected, or had been told would be the 
proper one. So in the mechanic arts, so in law and medicine; 
then why not in the more refined and subtile philosophy of 
metaphysics ? Why trust and appeal to the intellect in all mat- 
ters pertaining to material benefits, and so unceremoniously 
thrust it aside as untrustworthy when it comes to the study of 
ethical and psychological law? Is there nothing real in all 
these wordy abstractions which harass and perplex without 
satisfying, or does the fault lie in the method of study and the 
ends to be gained? Have we any criterion of truth, that we 
should follow automatically as the shadow follows the sub- 
stance? This was claimed and enforced during the Dark Ages, 
and the world lay dormant. Truth was claimed to have a vis- 
ible throne in the Church, yet the history of those times is a 
long history of crime against the fear-corded intelligence of 
man. This criterion (Truth) is now centered in the thinking 
capacity of every rational creature, and when a man lays aside 
his reason he denies God. The truth can be arrived at just 
as an eclipse of the sun can be arrived at, but you must work 
the problem out the same as the astronomer works out the 
eclipse. 

The intellectual world is tired and sick of dogmatic teaching. 

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good," and "be ready 
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of 
the hope that is in you." 




THE SUBJECT ILLUSTRATED 



Faith. 13 



CHAPTER V. 

FAITH. 

There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

— Tennyson. 

For the finite to grasp the infinite would be to make a part 
equal to the whole ; yet the finite, by the terms of its own exist- 
ence, and with the aid of the evidence at its command, can in a 
manner arrive at conclusions which are positive. Positive evi- 
dence, or the evidence of our senses, will compel every one to 
admit that time is without limit either in the past or future, 
that space is boundless in every direction. No man has experi- 
ence when there was no time, neither has he come to the limit 
of space. Evidence by denial, exclusion, or exception, twist it 
as you may, can never exclude either the one or the other, nor 
bring them within the scope of the finite. Synthetic reasoning, 
from whatever point you start, can only carry you to the circum- 
ference of the circle. At the boundary of the finite, reason must 
stop, because evidence becomes inoperative and testimony futile. 
Here another faculty assumes control, and, having its impulse 
from positive data, can never vary from the direction it takes. 

Faith is the only means by which the finite can extend itself 
into the infinite. 

Beyond the limits of the finite, it is influenced no more by 
finite things. "With its impulse from truth, its direction is for- 
ever in the line of truth; but with its momentum from error, 
its progress tends to error ad infinitum. In the philosophy of 
Materialism faith is a condemned faculty. It is regarded as the 
offspring of ignorance and superstition alone. Denial of facts 
and assumption of truths are the bane of all systems of philos- 
ophy. The contention is for whal we want rather than for what 
we have. Faith being one of the dependencies of reason, and 
being influenced and modified by the other dependent faculties, 
becomes a guide or a snare, according to the influence exerted 
by one or all of its fellow dependents. Faith, the product of 
reason, is simply an extension of reason beyond the finite into 
the infinite. Faith, the product of the subordinate faculties, is 



14 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

only an extension of those faculties into the infinite. K"ow, as 
truth within the circle of the finite is only attainable through 
reason, to find truth in the realm of infinity, we must exercise 
that faith which is based upon reason alone. Faith, based 
upon the subordinate faculties, is always liable to be erroneous, 
because these faculties contradict one another, and because they 
form "in the brain, that wondrous world with one inhabitant, 
recesses dim and dark, treacherous sands and dangerous shores, 
where seeming sirens tempt and fade; streams that rise in un- 
known lands from hidden springs, strange seas with ebb and 
flow of tides, resistless billows urged by storms of flame, pro- 
found and awful depths hidden by mist of dreams, obscure and 
phantom realms where vague and fearful things are half re- 
vealed, jungles where passions' tigers crouch, and skies of cloud 
and blue where fancies fly with painted wings that dazzle and 
mislead; and the poor sovereign of this pictured world is led 
by old desires and ancient hates, and stained by crimes of many 
vanished years, and pushed by hands that long ago were dust, 
until he feels like some bewildered slave that Mockery has 
throned and crowned."* 



*IngersolFs "Reply to Gladstone." 



Dialectics. 15 

CHAPTER VI. 

DIALECTICS. 

"And the poor sovereign" (Reason) "of this pictured world 
is led by old desires and ancient hates, and stained by crimes 
of many vanished years, and pushed by hands that long ago 
were dust, until he feels like some bewildered slave that Mockery 
has throned and crowned." 

Rhetoric ! Beautiful, high-sounding, turgid rhetoric ! Weap- 
ons of the evangelist — of the revivalist. Shall the philosopher 
imitate the priest ? Shall Reason abdicate her throne at the 
behest of a phrase-monger? 

"The intellect is not always supreme. It is surrounded by 
clouds. It sometimes sits in darkness. It is often misled — 
sometimes, in superstitious fear, it abdicates. It is not always 
a white light. The passions and prejudices are prismatic — they 
color thoughts. Desires betray the judgment and cunningly 
mislead the will."* 

Were these powers taken into the council that projected the 
Mont Cenis tunnel? Are they invited on shipboard in a storm 
at sea ? Did they help Lieutenant Maury to construct his navi- 
gation charts? Did Columbus invoke their aid when he set out 
on his voyage of discovery? It is a "poor sovereign," indeed, 
that takes these fearful helpers into his cabinet of state. Tor- 
quemada and Bonaparte chose them for boon companions and 
bedfellows. The mathematician utterly ignores them, the 
astronomer does not recognize them, and the philosopher should 
say to them, "Get thee behind me, Satan." The passions are 
the com moii property of man and brute. What makes the man 
Lfl his power to think on abstract subjects. This power to think 
is independent of ihe physical senses or the passions. The 
senses cannot help the mind to think. The passions, when they 
intrude, always do harm. The mind often becomes more acute 
and active when one or more of the senses are destroyed. A cele- 
brated blind teacher of anatomy in New York is an example. 
The deaf, dumb, and blind asylums prove the same thing. 
Bonaparte's character and career show what intellect will do. 



•Ingersoir. "Reply to Gladstone." 



16 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

aided by all the passions. The character of Lord Bacon is 
another example. Does anybody suppose that Euclid cared 
about the "obscure and phantom realms where vague and fear- 
ful things are half revealed, jungles where passions' tigers 
crouch, and skies of cloud and blue where fancies fly with 
painted wings that dazzle and mislead" ? Was he misled by this 
unexplored and tangled mass of disarray? Did fear, hope, 
despair, hatred, or love aid him in the solution of his celebrated 
forty-seventh problem? To what use could the mathematician 
put conscience? What can the surgeon do with prayer? How 
far would any or all of the passions direct the engineer, the 
navigator, or the statesman ? Does not the downfall of empires 
show what irrational legislation can do for men? Faith, di- 
rected by reason, brought Columbus to the Western Hemisphere. 
Faith, directed by conscience, caused Paul to persecute the early 
Christians. Faith, directed by reason, enabled Eads to channel 
the mouth of the Mississippi River. Faith, directed by worship, 
prayer, and superstition, caused Paulina to lose her virtue in 
the Temple of Isis.* Faith, directed by reason, makes agricul- 
ture possible; gives impulse to commerce, navigation, and edu- 
cation ; builds cities, wharves, steamboats, and railroads ; makes 
progress, civilization, and contentment possible. Faith, directed 
by the passions, causes internecine wars, religious persecutions, 
and autos-de-fe. 

"The experience of many ages proves that men may be ready to 
fight to the death, and to persecute without pity, for a religion whose 
creed they do not understand, and whose precepts they habitually 
disobey."t — Blind faith. 

Shall a man doff his reason the moment he puts on the garb 
of religion? Is it possible that God's physical laws are based 
upon reason, and his spiritual laws upon the subsidiaries to rea- 
son? Is revelation a thought of God? If so, how can revela- 
tion be above reason? Can the triangle contain more than two 
right angles in the mind of God? Is reason the image of God 
in man? If so, God's reason and man's reason are alike. 

Such were the philosophical conclusions of this gray-headed 
pedagogue from North Carolina, as he sat in the car reading 
the North American Review. 



*Josephus. tMacaulay. 



Evidence. 1 7 

CHAPTEE VII. 

EVIDEXCE. 

Mr. Eliot was somewhat startled by a long, shrill screech of 
the locomotive whistle, and a rather sudden slowing up of the 
train as it approached a station; but, as his attention was 
deeply engrossed upon the subject he was reading, he hardly 
knew the train had stopped until another passenger entered the 
car, and caused him to look up from his book. The passenger 
was a portly gentleman, rather above the middle age, with a 
beaming, kindly, rather full countenance, and a pleasant greet- 
ing on his lip, as he took a seat next our old friend and re- 
marked : "I am glad to find that I am not entirely alone in the 
car, as I always prefer company to solitude, and especially 
after a hearty breakfast." Without laying down his book, the 
old man adjusted his glasses and returned the gratulations of 
his new acquaintance with a smile and a pleasant word, to let 
him know that his presence was welcome; and with some emo- 
tion he directed the conversation at once to his book by saying, 
"I have just read a most astounding assertion, and as the author 
is a lawyer, and supposed to be well versed in matters of evi- 
dence, it appears all the more strange as coming from such a 
source." 

This at once opened the way for what is to follow in these 
pages ; and the new-comer, glancing at the book, saw it was the 
North American Review, and his eyes danced with a merry 
twinkle as he looked at the page and read, "A Reply to the Rev. 
Henry M. Field, D.D." 

"May I ask what the assertion is that appears to be so 
astounding?" Mr. Eliot opened the book and read this sentence : 
"In the nature of things, there can be no evidence of the exist- 
ence of an infinite being."* 

"Will you please to give me your idea of what may be termed 
evidence?" 

"Evidence, to my mind, may be reckoned under three forms — 
of positive, aegative, and rationalistic." 

"What do I understand you to mean by positive evidence?" 



■\ Reply to the Rev. Henry If. Field," i 
2 



18 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"Positive evidence is that form of testimony which is only 
deducible from the physical senses. 

"To make a positive assertion in regard to anything or any 
occurrence, yon must either see, hear, taste, smell, or touch the 
object of which your assertion is the subject. The probability 
of error in this mode of coming to conclusions is so great that 
the testimony at all times is made doubtful. Our earliest life is 
made up of sense impressions only, and, to correct the defects 
of one another, all the senses must be compared before they can 
give just information ; and, notwithstanding the experience of a 
lifetime, the eye will continue to deceive, subjective noises in 
the ear will distract, and the sense of smell is often perverted 
by a disagreeable sight or an unpleasant sound. Taste and 
touch, also, are subject to similar perversions, and require the 
most watchful care to prevent error, and we never live long 
enough to get entirely rid of the delusion. The clinical ther- 
mometer is a tacit admission on the part of every physician in 
the land that the tactile sense of the most delicate fingers can 
only approximate the truth as to temperature; the mirage of 
the desert is a plague-spot to the weary traveler ; and the tricks 
of the juggler become a divine alchemy to the uninformed. 
Negative evidence is a minus quantity in relation to the percep- 
tive powers — a sort of unofficial affirmation or assent of the 
mind. 

"Rationalistic evidence, as you well know, is the deduction 
of pure reason from admitted premises. Negative evidence 
may be taken in a description or definition by denial, exclusion, 
or exception — a statement of what a thing is not. Like the 
positive, it becomes useful in many of the factitious ordinances 
of life, and may become auxiliary to pure reason in seeking an 
unknown quantity. But, in a problem where you are limited 
to the synthetical mode of reasoning, little evidence can be 
admitted save the rationalistic." 



The "Assertion" Analyzed. 19 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE "ASSERTION" ANALYZED. 

The two travelers had become very good friends in this time, 
and the stout gentleman, turning to his companion, inquired if 
he thought that, by any one or all three of the modes of evi- 
dence discussed in the preceding chapter, it could be demon- 
strated that Colonel IngersolPs assertion in regard to the exist- 
ence of an infinite being might be false. 

"To demonstrate the absolute falsity of the assertion," replied 
the schoolmaster, "and to the entire satisfaction of all thinking 
minds, might be a task of great difficulty, but to place the bal- 
ance of evidence against the assertion, I not only think feasible, 
but of easy performance." 

"And, pray, what evidence is there to place against the as- 
sertion ?" 

"There is a great deal of negative, much positive, and some 
rationalistic evidence, which, if you will exercise a degree of 
patience, I will endeavor to present as briefly as possible" ; and, 
continuing, the old man said: 

"All truths move in parallel lines. They never cross, never 
clash, never run counter to one another. The axioms of Euclid 
stand in perfect harmony with every fact and every true theory 
of existence. There is not one single cosmic atom in the uni- 
verse which interferes with the statement that 'a straight line 
is the shortest distance between two points.' If it can be found 
that one of the least factors of existence shows violence to any 
theory, that theory in the nature of things must be false. A 
theory, to be true, must be based upon facts admit ted and self- 
evident, and the theory mUSl he the product of synthetic evolu- 
tion from those facts. For any statement to l>e absolutely true, 

it must be found that DO tad in the whole universe Impinges 

upon thai statement. The assertion of Colonel Ingersoll, that. 
'there '-an he no evidence of the existence of an infinite being* 
is dogmatic, pedantic, and not warranted by the facta <d* ex- 
ifltei 

•'In the discussion of any problem, .-ill parties musl be agreed 
upon fundamental principles. Unless the starting-points are 



20 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

the same, no process of ratiocination can ever bring disputants 
together. All results in mathematics and astronomy are based 
upon the fact that a straight line is the shortest distance be- 
tween two points. To deny this fact would make mining, engi- 
neering, railroading, navigation, impossible. Natural philos- 
ophy would build a 'Flying Island,' and the sciences would seek 
for a new Laputa, and a world of chance would be substituted 
for law and order, if it should be held that a curved line is 
shorter than a straight one ; yet no one can prove it. That two 
and two are equal to four is not susceptible of demonstration, 
still no one denies it. Now, the fact from which the balance of 
evidence may be placed against the 'assertion/ is the existence 
of the human mind." 

At this point the lecturer interrupted the old gentleman with 
the exclamation, "Hold! you are getting into deep water. We 
must have an understanding. What is the mind? Philosophy 
is not settled on this point. Is it a force or a mode of motion? 
A phenomenon dependent upon the movement of molecules, or 
is it the result of isomeric and metameric chemical changes in 
the brain?" 

"The mind is immaterial," said the old man. "The meta- 
meric and isomeric changes in chemical combinations deal with 
matter alone, and cannot be brought up as examples to illustrate 
combinations of material and immaterial phenomena. Any 
theory as to the movement of molecules setting up phenomena 
de novo is gratuitous, and must be assigned to the regions of 
dogmatism. We will not put it in a crucible and endeavor to 
reduce it to its component parts, neither will we call it a force 
or a mode of motion ; but we insist that it is an entity in contra- 
distinction to a nonentity — something instead of nothing. If 
you try to think of nothing, you can only do so by trying to 
associate in your mind the absence of existence. But, if you 
think of the mental state of one of your intimate friends, that 
condition of vacuity or nonentity is not presented to your mind 
as is the case when you try to think of nothing. This makes 
it self-evident that the mind does exist, and that it is some- 
thing." 



The "Assertion" Analyzed. 21 

The lecturer thought for a moment, and then said: "If the 
mind really be an entity, something instead of nothing, it is 
either self-existent or it is the effect of one or more causes." 

"That is just what we will come to after a while," said the 
old man ; "but we must establish its relation to the body before 
we can proceed to investigate its causes." 



22 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

CHAPTEK IX. 

MIND AND BRAIN. 

Continuing the conversation, the ancient "Tarheel" expressed 
the opinion that all intelligent persons were agreed that the 
brain is that particular portion of the animal body with which 
the mind is immediately connected. 

"I agree with you in this opinion," replied his companion; 
"but in what manner it is related to the brain has never yet 
been determined." 

"Scientific investigation," said the teacher, "is of necessity 
pure materialism, and is compelled to stop at the borders of the 
spirit-world. In this problem we have matter and spirit, or 
material and immaterial powers, so intimately related and asso- 
ciated that science is not only unwilling but unable to venture 
a solution." 

"Would it not more properly come within the province of the 
psychologist ?" 

"No. Theology and psychology both have hammered at this 
solution ever since man began to think on the subject, and with 
a bitterness and rancor more suited to the furies." 

"Is there then no explanation to phenomena which are under 
the daily observation of all men?" 

"An explanation that would be satisfactory to all minds is, 
perhaps, an impossible thing, but the balance of evidence may 
be placed here, as in other intricate cases, by reasoning from 
such facts as are known." 

"I can't understand," replied the stout gentleman, "how it is 
possible for much evidence to be adduced from such a paucity 
of facts." 

"It is true, the facts are not many, but, by a system of exclu- 
sion, evidence by denial will aid reason very much in getting a 
start." 

"Would you exclude all the present theories on the subject?" 

"I would first analyze those theories and see if they are 
founded on facts." 



Mind and Brain. 23 

"The theologic idea seems to be, that the mind exists inde- 
pendently of the brain, and only nses the brain as an implement 
or tool." 

"That is about their position," observed the old man, "and 
some pseudo-materialists maintain the same views, and among 
the most noted was the late Dr. John W. Draper. 

"He attempts to argue from the construction of the brain and 
nervous mechanism, the necessity for an independent vital prin- 
ciple or soul, and says: 'Thus it may be proved that those 
actions which we term intellectual do not spring from mere 
matter alone, nor are they functions of mere material combi- 
nations; for, though it is indisputably true that the mind seems 
to grow with the bodily structure, and declines with it, exhibit- 
ing the full perfection of its powers at the period of bodily 
maturity, it may be demonstrated that all this arises from the 
increase, perfection, and diminution of the instrument through 
which it is working. An accomplished artisan cannot display 
his powers through an imperfect tool, nor, if the tool should 
become broken or become useless through impairment, is it any 
proof that the artisan has ceased to exist; and so, though we 
admit that there is a correspondence between the development 
of the mind and the growth of the body, we deny that it follows 
from that either that the mind did not pre-exist or that the 
death of the body implies its annihilation.' " 

The lecturer himself could see that there was some "lost 
motion" in this theory, and observed : "This reasoning, carried 
out to its legitimate conclusion, would make the minds of all 
men equal — even that of the man-eating savage or the idiotic 
cretin would compare favorably with the greatest benefactors 
of the race. The Australian on his log and Sir Tsaac Newton, 
disembodied and da prived of the imperfect tools of the presenl 
life, would become co-artisans of equal merit in that land where 
there are no tools to work with, and no work to do." 

Mr. Eliot agreed with him in this criticism, and proceeded to 
give the materialistic view, or such deductions as science is able 
to present, by quoting from Dr. Austin Flint's work on "Human 
Physiology." 

" 'At the presenl day, we are in possession of 8 Bumcienl num- 
ber of positive facts to render it certain thai there is and can 



24 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

be no intelligence without brain-substance; that, when brain- 
substance exists in a normal condition, intellectual phenomena 
are manifested with a vigor proportionate to the amount of 
matter existing; that destruction of brain-substance produces 
loss of intellectual power ; and, finally, that exercise of the intel- 
lectual faculties involves a physiological destruction of nervous 
substance, necessitating regeneration by nutrition here as in 
other tissues of the living organism. The brain is not, strictly 
speaking, the organ of the mind, for this statement would imply 
that the mind exists as a force independently of the brain; but 
the mind is produced by the brain-substance; and intellectual 
force, if we may term, the intellect a force, can be produced only 
by the transmutation of a certain quantity of matter.' " 

The stout gentleman was pleased with the mention of Dr. 
Flint, and said that he knew Flint in his lifetime, and a very 
able man he was. "But," he continued, "if Dr. Flint has stated 
facts, and his conclusion be true, that 'mind is produced by the 
brain-substance/ then the brain becomes a functioning organ, 
and may be compared to other organs in the animal body, whose 
functions are well established. Bile, tears, saliva, and urine 
are secretions from and by their respective organs, the liver, the 
lachrymal and salivary glands, and the kidneys; so, if mind is 
only a secretion or excretion from the brain, this theory stands 
on as poor ground as the preachers' theory, and the exclamation 
of Pope Leo the Tenth, when he dismissed his prelates from 
their discussion of the soul, Et redit in nihilum, quod fuit ante 
nihil* is applicable to both, and the 'assertion' of Colonel In- 
gersoll remains unchallenged and unrefuted." 

Our philosopher expected this sophism, and challenged his 
opponent in these words: 

"All these secretory and excretory organs have blood as a 
material from which, by their own action, the various secretions 
and excretions are formed. These secretions are material sub- 
stances, and may be reduced to about the same elements as the 
blood from which they are formed. 

"You may ask if the brain has not blood also. 



>It began of nothing and in nothing it ends. 



Mind and Brain. 25 

"I would answer yes, and a very abundant supply, but it is 
for the nutrition of the brain-substance itself, and not for any 
secretory purposes. 

"The anatomy of the liver shows that it has a double circu- 
lation, one for the renewal of liver substance and the other for 
the purpose of fabricating bile; and so with all the other secre- 
tory organs of the body. The spleen is the only organ of any 
consequence except the brain which has but one circulation, and, 
as there is no visible effect of splenic action, its function to this 
day is problematical. The mind being the product of brain- 
action, the question arises, 'By what manner of means is this 
product the result of brain-action?' Bile, the product of liver- 
action, is a material substance made of blood, another material 
substance. Mind, the product of brain-action, is immaterial, 
and made from — what? 

"That like begets like is a law of nature. 

"Two of a sort will beget the same sort. 

"What does the brain make the mind out of? Nothing? 
The idea of creating something out of nothing has never been 
allowed to any power save Deity. Does it make it out of itself? 
The brain is material substance, and to admit an immaterial 
effect from a material cause would belie the law that like pro- 
duces like." 

The reader will perceive now that every theory and every 
chemical or molecular change that may occur in the brain have 
been examined and laid aside, and that the present tack is the 
only one that holds out the least hope of a rational solution of 
tlic problem. 

The subject will be further elucidated in the next chapter by 
an elaborate argument from analogy. 



26 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK X. 



ELECTRICITY. 



The schoolmaster, continuing his discourse, brought up, as 
an analogous example to the mind and brain, one of the most 
interesting subjects of which natural philosophy treats, and 
addressing his companion with an earnestness unusual to an 
octogenarian said: "Electricity is undoubtedly a force in na- 
ture, yet we never see manifestations of it except when con- 
trolled by or controlling matter ; and electrical force, like intel- 
lectual force, can be produced only by the transmutation of a 
certain quantity of matter. It is as immaterial as mind itself, 
and bears the same relation to matter that mind does to brain- 
substance. It is true that very dissimilar combinations of mat- 
ter can be made to develop the phenomena of electricity, while 
brain-substance alone is able to develop mind; still, this can be 
no argument against the analogous relations of the two, when 
we take into consideration that one is an organized, and the 
other an unorganized force. We might ask the same questions 
about electricity and its connection with matter that we asked 
about mind and its connection with brain-substance, and the 
same answers would be applicable to both. That electricity 
occupies space between material bodies is not disputed, and, 
moreover, it may be concentrated and stored up by machines 
and used at will, or it may be transferred from one body into 
another and held, or it may be allowed to dissipate itself again 
into space. Matter, then, is one thing, and electricity is another 
thing. Brain-substance is one thing, and mind is another thing. 
Electrical machines, by the transmutation of a certain quantity 
of matter, make manifest electricity, which exists independently 
of the electrical machines. Brain-substance, by the transmuta- 
tion of a certain quantity of matter, makes manifest mind, 
which exists independently of brain-substance." 

At this point the lecturer interrupted the old man by saying : 
"The course of reasoning you have adopted by your system of 
exclusion, and your appeals to exceptions or denials, would leave 
no other conclusion possible except the one you have arrived at \ 



Electricity. 27 

but you are still in a dilemma as to the priority of matter or 
electricity, of brain-substance or mind." 

"I understood/' replied the teacher, "that we had decided 
that mind in its individuality or personality is secondary to 
brain-substance; as the argument advanced by Dr. Draper, to 
the contrary, led to so many absurdities that you yourself first 
pointed them out. But, as that was more of a speculation than 
a rational conclusion, I will endeavor to show why the indi- 
vidual mind is secondary to brain-substance, and why brain- 
substance is secondary to mind as a whole." 

"I am a good listener," observed his companion, "and have 
good ears — proceed." 

"In the first place," he continued, "the facts stated by Dr. 
Flint make it positively certain that there can be no (indi- 
vidual) mind without brain-substance." 

The lecturer answered this by quoting Dr. Draper's illustra- 
tion of the artisan and tool. 

" 'An accomplished artisan cannot display his powers through 
an imperfect tool, nor, if the tool should be broken or become 
useless through impairment, is it any proof that the artisan has 
ceased to exist ; and so, though we admit that there is a cor- 
respondence between the development of the mind and the 
growth of the body, we deny that it follows from that, either 
that the mind did not pre-exist or that the death of the body 
implies its annihilation.' " 

"Dr. Draper has a very nice way of putting things," replied 
the old man ; "but if each individual mind pre-existed each indi- 
vidual brain, then each individual mind must either have existed 
from all eternity, or have come into existence at some indefinite 
time prior to each individual brain, and in either case the con- 
clusion would be an absurdity." 

li \\ r hy an absurdity?" asked his companion. 

"Because, if the mind existed from all eternity, if would be 
self-existent, and in consequence be Bubjed to no law. It would 

be COnditionleSS, which we knew to be untrue, as every mind is 

subject to the law of its own surroundings and conditions. It' 

it is made by SOme power oilier than itself, and made to be the 
owner and user of eaeli individual brain, and made prior to 
that brain, then we bave a mind-maker, and that mind-maker 



28 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

either makes mind out of something or creates it out of nothing ; 
and to admit the power to create at all, is to admit a creator, 
and that would end this investigation. The individual mind, 
then, is secondary to the individual brain; but that brain is 
secondary to collective mind, or mind as a whole, is proved by 
the fact that, for an individual mind to be secondary to any 
individual brain, that individual brain must stand in the rela- 
tion of cause and effect to its individual mind; and, as brain- 
substance cannot create or make mind out of nothing, it must 
have mind as a whole, or collective mind, as a source of supply 
upon which it can draw, in order to make manifest any indi- 
vidual mind. The electrical machine has electricity as a whole 
to draw upon, before it can collect and store up any individual 
charge of electricity." 

"You speak of collective mind, or mind as a whole," observed 
the stout gentleman. "Do I understand you to mean that this 
collective mind pervades all space, is universal — everywhere?" 

"I mean this," said the old teacher, "that mind outside of 
brain is like time outside of the present moment, like space out- 
side of your own surroundings — limitless. If mind had not 
existed before brain, brain never could have made it manifest, 
unless we allow to brain a creative power. If mind did exist 
before brain, then to say when it began to exist is equivalent to 
saying when time began to exist. If mind does or ever did exist 
outside of brain, then it is not circumscribed — it is infinite." 

"Even if we grant your position of a universal mind," replied 
the lecturer, "infinity of mind does not necessarily imply the 
existence of an infinite being. It may be that this universal 
mind is latent, and shows no activity until concentrated and 
individualized by the action of brain-substance." 

"We know," said the old man, "that electricity is active be- 
fore it is concentrated by the electrical machine, and if mind 
pervades the universe outside of brain, and is only active when 
concentrated, stored up, and made manifest by brain, if all space 
between material bodies be filled up with inactive mind, and is 
only drawn upon by the poor little brains of fishes and birds and 
animals and man, of insects, and the mites of the microscopic 
world, then we must say that the supply is out of all proportion 
to the demand ; but if this omnipresent mind thinks, and the evi- 



Electricity. 29 

dence that it does is so great that we cannot doubt it, then we 
have an infinite intelligence, to say the least of it, and an in- 
finite intelligence without the existence of 'being' is scarcely 
conceivable." 

"Your argument is ingenious," answered the stout gentleman, 
"but it is not sufficient to nullify the assertion of Colonel Inger- 
soll. The tack may be in the right direction, but the wind is not 
strong enough to fill the sails." 

"Perhaps," replied the old man, "we may be able to find some 
additional negations, in the doctrine of dysteleology, or pur- 
poselessness in nature, which, added to this ingenious tack, may 
fill the sails enough to keep the ship moving." 



30 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK XI. 

DESIGN. 

The schoolmaster continued the conversation thus: 

"The argument of design has suffered more at the hands of 
its friends than of its enemies. The former have made it a mass 
of contradiction by denying much of its essence, while the latter 
simply ignore it. They have likewise made Jehovah the butt of 
ridicule by denying him many of his attributes, and investing 
him with too much of human virtue. He has become a crowned 
demigod upon the altars of superstition and fear, and no God 
to the intellect of man. What we are seeking here is an un- 
known quantity. If we find that quantity to contain mercy, all 
right. If we find it sodden with envy, spite and malice, it mat- 
ters not. If we find in it all the elements of human character, 
shall we be chagrined? Suppose we find the God of the Bible, 
shall Colonel Ingersoll be unhappy? or, if we find an 'infinite 
vacuum/ shall he rejoice?" 

"Colonel Ingersoll would rejoice to find the truth," observed 
the stout gentleman. 

"Then let's seek the truth with such means as we have," said 
the teacher, and continuing his discourse, said: "The doctrine 
of dysteleology, or purposelessness in nature, offers a wide scope 
to the discerning powers, and must in a reasonable measure 
account for facts, or take its place with design as ordinarily 
presented, and the infinite goodness of Jehovah. As we have 
said before, one fact impinging upon any theory will undo the 
theory and make it untenable. Haeckel, in his 'Evolution of 
Man/ speaking of the rudimentary organs of animals, says : 
'They are among the most interesting phenomena with which 
comparative anatomy acquaints us, because they most forcibly 
refute the customary teleological philosophy of the schools. 
They must be regarded as parts which in the course of many 
generations have gradually been disused and drawn from active 
service. Owing to disuse and consequent loss of function, the 
organs gradually waste away, and finally entirely disappear. 
Hence, they are of the greatest philosophical importance; they 
clearly prove that the mechanical conception of organisms is 



Design. 31 

alone correct.' This 'mechanical conception of organisms' makes 
sexual attraction dependent upon the 'elective affinity of two 
differing cells — the sperm-cell and the egg-cell.' 

"The words of Haeckel are these: 'The coalescence of two 
cells is everywhere the single, original impelling force. At first, 
the two united cells may have been entirely alike. Soon, how- 
ever, by natural selection, a contrast must have arisen between 
them. One cell became a female egg-cell, the other, a male seed 
or sperm-cell.' Was ever assumption more gratuitous? Did 
ecclesiastical bigotry ever formulate a more dogmatic conclu- 
sion? And yet the mechanical theory of the universe is built 
upon just such foundations. After paying a passionate tribute 
to love as the 'source of the most splendid creations of art, and 
reverencing it as the most powerful factor in human civiliza- 
tion,' he says: 'So wonderful is love, and so immeasurably 
important is its influence on mental life, on the most varied 
functions of the medullary tube, that in this point more than 
any other, "supernatural" causation seems to mock every natu- 
ral explanation. A theory which is founded only upon a "must," 
ought not to complain of a similar theory, because it sets out 
with the "Supernatural," and seems to mock at the explanations 
of its degenerate offspring, however much it may claim to be 
natural.' " 

"I think," replied the lecturer, "that you do Professor Haeckel 
an injustice, by quoting only a part of what he has said on this 
subject. A reading of his book may place a different construc- 
tion upon the doctrine of purposelessness versus design in na- 
ture. Having the book in my traveling bag, with your permis- 
sion, I will read that portion which bears directly upon this 
theory." 

And taking from his satchel t lie first volume of the "Evolu- 
tion of Man," he read on page 109, from the article "Dysteleol- 
ogy," these words: 

"Almost every orir.'inism, with the exception of (lie lowest and 

most imperfect, and especially every highly developed vegetable 
or animal body, man as well ;i- others, p one or more 

structures which are useless to it- organism, valueless for its 
life-purposes, worthless for its functions. Thus ;ill <>f us have 

in our bodies various muscles which we never use; for example, 



32 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

the muscles in the external ear and the parts immediately sur- 
rounding it. These outer and inner ear muscles are of great 
use to most animals, especially such as have the power of erects 
ing the ears, because the form and position of the ear may thus 
be materially altered, in order to take in the various waves of 
sound in the best possible manner. In man, however, and in 
other animals not possessing the power of pricking up the ears, 
the muscles, though present, are useless. As our ancestors long 
ago discontinued to make use of them, we have lost the power 
of moving them. Again, there is in the inner corner of our eye 
a small crescent-shaped or semi-lunar fold of skin, the last rem- 
nant of a third inner eyelid, the so-called nictitating membrane. 
In our primitive relatives, the sharks, and in many other verte- 
brates, this membrane is highly developed, and of great use to 
the eye, but with us it is abortive and entirely useless. On the 
intestinal canal we have an appendage which is not only use- 
less, but may become very injurious, the so-called vermiform 
appendage of the caecum. This little appendage of the intestine 
not infrequently causes fatal disease. If in the process of diges- 
tion, by an unlucky accident, a cherry-stone or some other hard 
body is pressed into its narrow passage, a violent inflammation 
ensues, which usually causes death. The vermiform appendage 
is not of the slightest use in our organism; it is the last and 
dangerous remnant of an organ which was much larger in our 
vegetarian ancestors, and was of great use to them in digestion, 
as it is still in many herbivorous animals, such as apes and 
rodents, in which it is of considerable size and of great physio- 
logical importance. 

"Other similar rudimentary organs exist in us as in all higher 
animals, in different parts of the body. They are among the 
most interesting phenomena with which comparative anatomy 
acquaints us : firstly, because they afford the most obvious proof 
of the theory of descent ; and, secondly, because they most forci- 
bly refute the customary teleological philosophy of the schools. 
The doctrine of descent renders the explanation of these remark- 
able phenomena very simple. They must be regarded as parts 
which in the course of many generations have gradually been 
disused and withdrawn from active service. Owing to disuse 
and consequent loss of function, the organs gradually waste 



Design. 33 

away, and finally entirely disappear. The existence of rudi- 
mentary organs admits of no other explanation. Hence, they 
are of the greatest philosophical importance ; they clearly prove 
that the mechanical or monistic conception of the nature of 
organisms is alone correct, and that the prevailing teleological 
or dualistic method of accounting for them is entirely false. 
The very ancient fahle of the all-wise plan according to which 
'the Creator's hand has ordained all things with wisdom and 
understanding/ the empty phrase about the purposive 'plan of 
structure' of organisms, is in this way completely disproved. 
Stronger arguments can hardly be furnished against the cus- 
tomary teleology or doctrine of design, than the fact that all 
more highly developed organisms possess such rudimentary or- 
gans." 

"I am glad," replied the ancient schoolmaster, "that you hap- 
pened to have the book, for the whole extract places the doctrine 
in a more awkward position than did the few lines I chanced to 
remember. 

"A doctrine which so easily accounts for these rudimentary 
organs surely ought to account, with equal facility, for organs 
and functions which still remain in active use and operation. 
The human eye, if I remember correctly, occupies ten pages in 
the 'Evolution of Man.' This is the way he commences his de- 
scription : 'The history of the development of the eye is equally 
remarkable and instructive. For although the eye, owing to its 
exquisite optical arrangement and wonderful structure, is one 
of the most complex and most nicely adapted organs, yet it 
develops, without a preconceived design, from a very simple 
rudiment in the outer skin covering.' While he can so readily 
account for 'the last remnant of a third inner eyelid, the so- 
on lied nictitating membrane,' he does not once mention a little 
contrivance in the appendages to the eyeball by which the move- 
ment called rotation is effected. We can but admire the silence 
of Professor Haeckel OB one of the most important systems of 
the animal body in hifl attempt to prove that man is the blood- 

relative of ape- and worms. In these two exhaustive volumes 
of over nine hundred pages, he devotes ten lines to the develop- 
ment of the muscular system, yet thi- BVStem gives form and 
3 



34 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

elasticity, beauty and strength to the body, and is a maze of 
mechanical principles subservient to beauty and use. 

"In the eye socket is a little fusiform muscle, whose use it is 
to rotate the eyeball, and to do this, it must pull the globe in 
another direction from itself. This is accomplished by the 
muscle passing over a pulley on the same principle of the block 
and tackle. How did it get over the pulley? Is this fact a 
result of the terrible and ceaseless 'struggle for existence' ? Did 
this little muscle have such a craving desire for existence, that 
it projected itself over the pulley, and submitted to be doubled 
up on itself, for the sake of being there ; or did the eye have such 
a longing for being rolled about, that it built up this muscle, and 
hung this tendon over the pulley, because there was no other 
room in the orbit for it? Explain this muscle, and I yield at 
once to the doctrine of purposelessness." 

"Colonel Ingersoll," replied the lecturer, "in his second letter 
to Dr. Field, answered the argument of design in these words : 
'You see what you call evidences of intelligence in the universe, 
and you draw the conclusion that there must be an infinite 
intelligence. Your conclusion is far wider than your premise. 
It is illogical to say, because of the existence of this earth, and 
of what you can see in and about it, that there must be an infi- 
nite intelligence. You do not know that even the creation of 
this world, and of all planets discovered, required an infinite 
power or infinite wisdom. I admit that it is impossible for me 
to look at a watch and draw the inference that there was no 
design in its construction, or that it only happened. I could 
not regard it as a product of some freak of nature, neither could 
I imagine that its various parts were brought together and set 
in motion by chance. I am not a believer in chance. But there 
is a vast difference between what a man has made, and the ma- 
terials of which he has constructed the things he has made. 
You find a watch, and you say that it exhibits or shows design. 
You insist that it is so wonderful it must have had a designer ; 
in other words, that it is too wonderful not to have been con- 
structed. You then find the watchmaker; and you say with 
regard to him, that he, too, must have had a designer, for he is 
more wonderful than the watch. In imagination you go from 
the watchmaker to the being you call God ; and you say he de- 



Design. 35 

signed the watchmaker, but he himself was not designed, be- 
cause he is too wonderful to have been designed. 

" 'And, yet, in the case of the watch and the watchmaker, it 
was the wonder that suggested design, while in the case of the 
maker of the watchmaker, the wonder denied a designer. Do 
you not see that this argument devours itself V " 

"Colonel Ingersoll was then contending with a preacher," said 
the old man, "and he was combating an assumption. Dr. Field 
assumed God. In this case nothing has been assumed ; but from 
one single fact, which you dare not deny, an infinite intelligence 
has been demonstrated by reasoning which is incontrovertible. 
If this infinite intelligence is the same which Dr. Field assumed, 
then instead of Dr. Field's argument devouring itself, your 
own has become a felo-de-se." 



36 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

CHAPTEE XII. 

HYBRIDS AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PAIN. 

The old gentleman, continuing his argument, said: "It is a 
well-known fact that there is a class of animals in the world 
known as hybrids. These animals are generally produced by 
the intervention of man; but we cannot deny that they are a 
product of nature, and that they may, and do, occasionally, come 
about without any interference on the part of man. Every 
close observer must have noticed the almost insatiable eroticism 
of these animals. The genital organs in both sexes are perfect 
with one exception — that of function; they are barren.* The 
common mule is a type of this class, and is bred for man's ben- 
efit alone. It is one of the most erotic of animals. The male 
is without sperm-cells, the female has no egg-cells. The true 
function of the genital organs has never been exercised. The 
secondary function, that of copulation, has been exercised so 
rarely that it amounts to 'disuse,' yet these organs have neither 
become atrophied nor rudimentary." 

"It seems to me," replied the stout gentleman, "that it is 
straining a point to bring hybrids into the controversy. These 
animals are an exception to the general rule. For their pro- 
duction it requires an amalgamation of two distinct species, 
and if reproduction was possible to this class, the result could 
not be a hybrid, but another distinct species. 'Disuse' can have 
nothing to do with any of the organs in the hybrid body, as 
each individual of this class stands in the same cognate position 
with the first as with the last that might come upon the earth. 
Evolution is at a standstill with regard to hybrids. They are 
an exception to the law." 

"I am glad to see," remarked the old gentleman, "that your 
eyes are beginning to open. There is more, I dare say, on this 
line, than you have thought of. Another fact connected with 
the animal body is worthy of study — the pains of parturition. 

"For all other pains to which the animal economy is subject, 
there is an adequate cause, a justifiable and pathological reason. 



♦The "Mechanical Conception of Organisms" makes sexual attraction dependent 
upon the "elective affinity of two differing cells, the sperm-cell and the egg-cell." 



Hybrids and Physiological Pain. 37 

For this pain science is a sealed book, physiology is dumb, and 
pathology has no answer. According to all analogy, the partu- 
rient uterus ought to contract without pain. The heart, stom- 
ach, bladder, and other hollow muscles cause no pain either in 
distention or contraction; then wherefore the womb? If preg- 
nancy be a pathological condition, then law is at fault. If 
according to nature, wherefore the pain? Xo law can be for- 
mulated from one isolated fact, neither can any known law hang 
the tendon of a muscle over a pulley. The barrenness of 
hybrids is the strongest kind of proof against the transmutation 
of species, and their salacious propensities in connection with 
their inability to procreate would place them outside the limits 
of law." 

"If," observed the lecturer, "you place them outside the 
limits of law, they would become outlaws." 

"And truly so," replied the teacher. "Nature has outlaws as 
well as society. The budding of fruit-trees is a species of out- 
lawry which nature will not permit for many generations in 
succession. After a while it becomes impossible to make the 
bud live. There is not a race of mulattoes on the face of the 
earth. They will go back, and all be white or all negroes, or 
all die out. And so with improved stock. They revert to their 
original place as soon as the hand of man is withdrawn." 

"Would you place physiological pain in the same category?" 
asked the lecturer. 

"There is no other place to put it," replied the teacher. 
"Physiological pain is an anomaly in nature, still it cannot be 
called a i'rcak, for a regular recurrence of any fact will destroy 
the idea of supervenient causes." 

"I infer," said the lecturer, "from your mode of reasoning, 
that you regard physiological pain, hybrids, and tin- various 
improvements upon natural products, together with the results 
of the destructive efforts of man, as being extrinsic to natural 

processes, and, as such, should he placed outside of natural 

law." 

"You seem to have the idea," said the old man. "hut I fear 

ynu may draw inferences which would imi be justified by the 
introspection. Nature cannot do an unnatural thing, neither 

can man. Wo speak of man's work as being artificial only SB 



38 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

a result which nature would not and could not accomplish with- 
out individual intelligences. It cannot be unnatural, because 
every product of an individual intelligence (such as a shoe or 
a hat, for instance) is artificial in the sense that, for its accom- 
plishment, the individual intelligence has modified and utilized 
the means placed at its command by the universal intelligence, 
and in this sense alone can it be called unnatural. Likewise, 
pain produced by the throes of a parturient uterus, together 
with hybrid products, while they are perfectly natural, must be 
regarded as bearing the same relation to the regular current of 
natural events which the artificial products of man sustain to 
natural law; and, there being nothing analogous in nature to 
these special and arbitrary effects, we are obliged to regard 
them as the ipse dixit of that infinite intelligence of which the 
mind of man is an infinitesimal reflection." 

"It appears, then/' said the lecturer, "that all your array of 
logical sequences has only brought you at last to the irrational 
assumption of the average theologian, and that Dr. Field's 
Presbyterian God is the unknown quantity which you have 
sought with so much labor." 

"The answer we may find," replied the teacher, "in the solu- 
tion of any problem does not and cannot depend upon our likes 
or dislikes. To me, individually, it is a matter of perfect indif- 
ference whether God, devil, heaven, hell, or immortality be fact 
or fiction. I would not change it from what it is if I had the 
power; but it being a fact that the three angles of a triangle 
are equal to two right angles, I am glad to know it. So, if God 
is, I wish to know it ; if hell be a fact, I wish to know that. I 
have no feeling in the matter. All I can do is to learn the 
truth according to the lights before me." 

At this speech, the stout gentleman made a spasmodic and 
involuntary effort to flirt the rudimentary, nictitating mem- 
brane of his "primitive ancestors" over the visual organ, as if 
to remove a mote or to diagnose the disease nyctalopia, but find- 
ing the effort useless, and the impliciti morbi more in the brain 
than in the eye, he gazed earnestly at this dried-up specimen of 
aged humanity, and asked in tones of astonishment: 

"What kind of man are you? I have been endeavoring for 
two hours to get at what you believe, and I am more at a loss 



Hybrids and Physiological Pain. 39 

than ever. You commit yourself to nothing. Even the deduc- 
tions of your own strange mode of reasoning are not affirmed. 
You start with what you call the fact of the human mind, and 
reason out in your own way another fact, which you call an 
infinite intelligence. You seem to argue that the intelligence 
of man is nothing but an accumulation of a bit of this infinite 
intelligence in the brain of each individual, to perpetrate petty 
acts for good and evil, so long as it is used by or uses the brain 
with which it is intimately connected. This would make a 
theology with which I am unacquainted." 

In reply, the old man said : "When you set out with premises 
which are time, axiomatic, self-evident, and reason logically, the 
end of your inquiry is truth. The result should neither be 
anticipated nor imagined, but accepted when found, whether 
we like or dislike it. Hating a fact cannot make it false, neither 
can love for an error make it true. 

"A broader view of this infinite intelligence might enable you 
to understand the apparent contradictions in the Jewish and 
Christian theologies. These apparent discrepancies, garbled by 
sophism and rhapsody, present to the murky eye of ignorance 
a tangled skein of mysticism, and enable such men as Mr. Inger- 
soll to pass the juggler's pieces of their scoffing pyrrhonism as 
true coin." 

"It is with difficulty," said the lecturer, "that I get your ideas 
from your language. What do you mean by 'a broader view 
of this infinite intelligence'?" 

"The word 'infinite' ought to give you a hint as to what I 
mean. Infinite intelligence implies a knowledge of all igno- 
rance, all error, all mistake. It is not confined to the good, the 
beautiful, and the true. It takes in the universe, witli its pleas- 
ures and its pains, its beauties and its deformities. As man 
can impart his knowledge to his fellow-man without diminish- 
ing his own, SO the infinite intelligence can. without detracting 
from itself, supply all the brains in the universe. But, as ;i 

pari can never equal the whole, to say, 'An infinite God has no 
eZOUSe for Leaving hifl children in doubl and darkness.' [b a 

travesty upon the question, 'Why should the infinite ask any- 
thing from the finite?'* Colonel Ingersoll says: 'The sentence. 



♦"Colonel [sflenoll to Mr. Gladstone," page 620. 



40 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"There is a God/' could have been imprinted on every blade of 
grass, on every leaf, on every star.'* The same, with equal 
propriety, might be said of this sentence: 'The three angles of 
a triangle are equal to two right angles.' Does everybody in 
the world know this mathematical truth? Suppose Colonel In- 
gersoll's mind was so constructed that it would be impossible 
for him to comprehend the demonstration of this problem, and 
then suppose he was to say, 'In the nature of things there can 
be no evidence of the truth of the proposition that "the three 
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles" ' : would this 
have any effect upon the truth of the proposition? Infinite 
intelligence implies more than the words import. To condition 
in word or thought, in act or attribute, is to detract from in- 
finity; therefore, being is as much of a necessary attribute of 
infinite intelligence as omniscience or omnipresence. This con- 
clusion may appear at first sight to be a non sequitur; but, 
reasoning from analogy, we can but place it in the catalogue 
of syllogisms. Our perceptions only give us ideas of intelli- 
gence connected with, or emanating from, human beings; and 
to conceive of an infinite intelligence without the attribute of 
being, is as impossible as to conceive of an individual intelli- 
gence apart from a human being." 

"I would infer," said the lecturer, "from what you have 
already said, that you do not acknowledge the Presbyterian God 
of Dr. Field, yet you have worked up in your own mind an 
infinite being. I am at a loss to understand your conception 
of this being. Is he the God of the Jew, Christian or Moham- 
medan? Who is he? What is he? What is his character?" 

"My argument," said the teacher, "has been, all the way 
through this discussion, to nullify the 'assertion' of Colonel In- 
gersoll, that 'there can be no evidence of the existence of an 
infinite being.' If the evidence adduced is of any value; if I 
have been able to show that the theory of development which 
involves the transmutation of species, the doctrine of pnrpose- 
lessness, etc., is based upon assumed postulates, and by pure 
reason to demonstrate that the human mind would bo an impos- 
sibility from a physical or mechanical conception of organ- 
isms — then we surely have arrived at God: not the God of the 



""Letter to Dr. Field," page 40. 



Hybrids and Physiological Pain. 41 

Presbyterians, for I thoroughly agree with Colonel Ingersoll 
that their description of God more nearly resembles an 'infinite 
vacuum' ; not the God of any church or creed : but the God who 
says, 'I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and 
create evil' ; the God who said to the woman, 'In sorrow shalt 
thou bring forth children' ; that God of whom Job said, 'He 
breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds with- 
out cause'; the same God who hated Esau and loved Jacob be- 
fore they were yet born ; he who put wool upon the negro's 
head, and straight hair upon the white man's ; who gave the 
mule to man for a beast of burden, and virtually said, 'So far 
shalt thou go, and no farther' ; he who hung the tendon of the 
pathetic muscle over a pulley; who changed the two coalescent 
primordial cells, one into male and the other into female; the 
same God who capacitated the soul of Colonel Ingersoll for 
such emotional states as the following words would imply : 

" 'I have sometimes wished that there were words of pure 
hatred out of which I might construct sentences like snakes; 
out of which I might construct sentences with mouths fanged, 
that had forked tongues; out of which I might construct sen- 
tences that writhed and hissed: then I could give my opinion 
of the rebels during the great struggle for the preservation of 
this Nation.'* The same God whom Colonel Ingersoll so cor- 
dially hates, and whose existence is affected by this hatred about 
as much as the existence of rheumatism is affected by his hatred 
for that." 



•Speeches, Wit, Wisdom, and Eloc4uence. 



42 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



PART II. 

"HE" IS UNCOMMONLY POWERFUL IN HIS OWN LINE, BUT IT IS NOT 
THE LINE OF A FIRST-RATE MAN." 

In all the catalogue of human frailties, no trait is more cen- 
surable, more justly deserving of pity and contempt, than the 
overweening egotism of oracular wisdom. 

Poet and philosopher have combined with ridicule and blame, 
to expunge this nauseous dilettanteism from the list of human 
foibles. Pharisaical notions of superior wisdom and superior 
virtue have met with rebuff at the high court of the manly 
intelligence. 

Nothing but the most brazen impudence, or the petrified feel- 
ing of utter indifference, or the unhallowed desire for notoriety 
mingled with criminal ignorance, can induce any one to pander 
to the baser passions of mankind in an attempt to subvert truth, 
and to mock at the sacred beliefs of man. 

The rottenness of priestcraft has no more to do with religious 
truth than political jobbery has to do with statecraft. Many 
a foul stream flows from a crystal fountain, and to condemn the 
source on account of the mingling of sewage and garbage is to 
condemn the sunshine because it falls upon a dung heap. 

The scientific artisan builds a burglar-proof safe. The edu- 
cated burglar devises means to get into it. Knowledge is the 
handmaid of the bad as well as of the good. The oxyhydrogen 
blowpipe in the hands of a thief will silently burn a hole 
through steel as surely as it will do the same work for the 
chemist. Dynamite will exert the same force for the criminal 
that it does for the engineer or the miner. 

As the criminal studies science, so the sophist studies art. 

Ornate and striking sentences, well-rounded periods, poetical 
effusions, and oratorical grandiloquence capture the senses and 
inflame the passions. 

Logic is prosaic and dull; rhetoric is drunk in with avidity 
while it moves to tears or excites to madness. 

The picture of a dying Saviour has carried more penitents to 
the mourner's bench than all the books on polemical divinity. 



"Uncommonly Powerful in His Line." 43 

The slave-mother deprived of her babe has stirred up the 
bitterest feelings in Colonel Ingersoll's soul and caused him to 
rail at Jehovah. 

He has a contempt for the Christian penitent, while the slave- 
master has a contempt for him. Is reason the arbiter in either 
case, or does Colonel Ingersoll possess all and the other two 
none? 

Is truth a reality, or is it a weather-cock, to be bandied about 
by the opinions of men ? 

Theologians and lay-Christians have fought infidelity with 
the Bible. It is like fighting the devil with snow-balls ! Satan 
pretends to be a great reasoner, a profound logician. Daniel 
De Foe, in writing his history, proved him to be a fool. He is 
the same fool to-day that he has ever been. He is more igno- 
rant than criminal. His theories are confuted by well-known 
facts. His sayings, tested by logic, are as "sounding brass or a 
tinkling cymbal." 

Before the end of the discussion in the last chapter, the train 
had stopped at a supply station, and in the very midst of the 
controversy, several gentlemen entered the car, and, observing 
the animated debate going on between the two passengers, natu- 
rally seated themselves in close proximity to the disputants. 
Some of these gentlemen knew the younger man, and had heard 
him lecture on his favorite subject. They were familiar also 
with the writings of Colonel Ingersoll, and observing the atti- 
tude of profound earnestness with which the octogenarian de- 
ported himself, together with his shriveled and almost insignifi- 
cant appearance, they soon became an audience of eager listen- 
ers, while the old teacher, animated still more by their attention, 
seemed to forget that he was a long way from home, that he was 
traveling at the rate of forty miles an hour, over a country he 
had never seen before, and that he was talking before strangers 
to whom he was utterly unknown, and whom be would likely 
never see again. 

He seemed to feel that he was in his native pine forest in the 
sand-hills of Carolina, seated behind his desk in the little log 
cabin where he had taught class after class for the past half- 
century, and that he was addressing a score or more of brawny 
young brains on the principles of logic. 



44 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

His favorite mode of teaching for many years had been by 
didactic lectures, and his pupils were made up from the better 
class of thinkers, many of whom had been to college. 

As age encroached upon his manhood, and diminished his 
powers of bodily endurance, he had given up much of the drudg- 
ery of the schoolroom, and instead of text-book recitations, he 
taught principles by analyzing the current thought of the day, 
thus presenting information in its most attractive form. 

After this manner he proceeded to analyze the philosophy, 
or, as he called it, the sophistry, of Colonel Ingersoll, and ad- 
dressing himself to the new additions, as well as to his first com- 
panion, he said: "In his first reply to Dr. Field, the Colonel 
says 'Reason is the supreme and final test. If God has made a 
revelation to man, it must have been addressed to his reason. 
There is no other faculty that could even decipher the address. 
Extinguish that and naught remains.' 

"Here we can cordially shake hands with the great iconoclast, 
yet I know of no one who makes more pathetic appeals to the 
feelings and passions. 

"With his thunder and invective, what a famous preacher he 
would have made ! 

"He seems to think that Dr. Field was trying to cozen him 
with the 'fatherly' advice to soften his colors. Dr. Field was 
only telling him the truth, when he told him that his words 
would be more weighty if not so strong. 

"Voltaire, Rousseau, Paine and Hume wrote with persuasive 
pens. G-regg wetted the pages of his 'Creed of Christendom' 
with bitter tears, and the passionless and soulless philosophy of 
materialism never deals in invective. 

"The continuous diatribes flowing like a stream of mephitic 
vapor from the mouth and pen of this modern apostle of ration- 
alism, hover over the thoughtless multitude, and sway them to 
and fro with their Jack-o'-lantern lights, causing hurrahs for 
the moment, and departing like the specter of the Brocken 
without leaving a visible track. 

"Sam Jones, or any other popular revivalist with a similar 
use of language and the same personal magnetism, can at any 
moment turn the same tide in his direction with a wave of his 
wand. 



"Uncommonly Powerful in His Line." 45 

"It is the forte of the revivalist to coax the language for a 
picture; a horrid and gloomy portrait of hell — a weapon with 
which he wounds the softest chords of the mothers heart, and 
rends the tenderest sympathies of innocent childhood. 

"He succeeds in making miserable for a short time his wife 
and his baby, his mother and his sister, and thinks he has done 
God's service. He talks about the soul as though he had a 
sample in his pocket, and its destiny as if power had been dele- 
gated to him for its disposal. Should the philosopher imitate 
the priest? 

"And more; Colonel Ingersoll ought to remember this scien- 
tific fact, that nothing is lost; that the 'correlation and con- 
servation' of energy is an admitted truth, that force is inde- 
structible and eternal. 

"He might also study with advantage the teachings of dy- 
namical physiology, and learn that within the brain there is a 
registering ganglion which infallibly records every imprint re- 
ceived through the senses. 

"Whether we regard the brain as the instrument of the mind, 
or the mind as the product of brain action, the case is the same. 
How bad then it is to have error stamped upon a scroll that is 
incapable of being filled — a scroll that forever retains the im- 
prints it receives ! 

"This registering power of mind keeps an accurate account 
of all our thoughts, and while very few of them are remembered, 
the whole scroll is so carefully preserved that it may not inaptly 
be compared to a book. 

•••And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and 

the hooks wore opened, and another hook was opened, which is i he 
boob of life, and the dead were judged oul of those things which 
were written in the hooks, according to their works.' 

"What a theme for the teachers of revelation if they would 

give their lessons from a scientific Standpoint, instead of the 

hideous object-lessons portrayed in Dante's 'Inferno' and some 
modern illustrated Bibles. 

"With these facts before him, can Colonel [ngersol] exclaim 

with Rosseau: 'When the last trumpet shall sound, I will pre- 



46 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

sent myself before the sovereign judge with his book in my hand, 
and loudly proclaim, thus have I acted ; these were my thoughts ; 
such was I'?* 

"A worshiper of the goddess of Reason should be consistent, 
at any rate, for when inconsistency walks in, reason leaves the 
house without an adieu. 

"As 'the tree is known by his fruit,' so the philosopher is 
judged by his maxims. 

Euclid lived in the fifth century B. C. His axioms have 
stood the test of criticism more than two thousand years. The 
mathematical sciences have been built upon his sayings. 

" 'If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot 
stand.' Colonel Ingersoll has built a huge structure which he 
has decorated with ornamental scrolls, and painted with all the 
colors of the rainbow. It glitters in the moonlight. Beautiful 
coruscations flash like the wintry aurora around its dome. 
Upon the highest pinnacle he has placed a statue of Minerva. 
At the gilded portals may be read in shining letters, 'Templum 
Sapientice/j- In moking silence the statue echoes back, 'Satis 
eloquentice, sapientice parvum/% 

"Minerva is impatient upon her throne, and desires to abdi- 
cate. The house is divided against itself. The foundation is 
sand, and the corner-stone, what? The axioms of Colonel In- 
gersoll. 

"Axiom first. 'That which happens must happen.' Axiom 
second. 'That which must be has the right to be.' 

"The Colonel is to be admired for his short, crisp way of say- 
ing things. It leaves no room for misunderstandings. He is to 
be admired for the advice he gave to Dr. Field, when he said :§ 
'Do not, I pray you, deal in splendid generalities. Be explicit.' 
He is to be admired the more for following his own advice — for 
being explicit. A syllogism is the most beautiful thing ever 
presented to a reasoning mind. 

" 'That which happens must happen.' 

"The thumb-screw happened, therefore, the thumb-screw must 
have happened. 

" 'That which must be has the right to be.' 



'Confessions." t"Temple of wisdom." J "Much eloquence, but little wisdom." 
'A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field," pages 484-5. 



"Uncommonly Powerful in His Line." 47 

"The thumb-screw must have been, therefore it had the right 
to be. 

"Is Colonel Ingersoll fighting for the right ? 

" 'That which happens must happen.' 

"Negro slavery happened, therefore negro slavery must have 
happened. 

" 'That which must be has the right to be.' 

"Negro slavery must have been, therefore negro slavery had 
the right to be. 

"Why did Colonel Ingersoll fight against negro slavery? 

" 'That which happens must happen.' 

"It happened that Guiteau killed Garfield, therefore the kill- 
ing of Garfield must have happened. 

" 'That which must be has the right to be.' 

"The killing of Garfield must have been, therefore it was right 
for him to be killed. 

"Did the United States Government think so? 

"Axiom third.* 'To exercise a right yourself which you deny 
to me is simply the act of a tyrant.' 

"Is the United States Government a tyrant? In killing 
Guiteau, did it not exercise a right which it denied to him? 
What would syllogistic reasoning do with the third axiom in 
this case ? Is it possible that this champion of liberty and free- 
dom should uphold the act of a tyrant ? 

"He boldly says that,f 'Society has the right to protect itself 
by imprisoning those who prey upon its interests,' and 'it may 
have the right to destroy the life of one dangerous to the com- 
munity.' 

"How did it come by such rights? By the consent of all its 
citizens? 

"Nay, my good friends, the right to take life is the right of 
might. 

"Why should Colonel [ngersoll love human law and hate 
God's law? They both kill, they both oppress; they are both 
formulated upon the one principle — power. Is he consistent? 
Is he logical, or is be like 'Frankenstein'? 



*"A Reply to the Rev. Benry M. Field," page 177 

f'Letter to Dr. Field," page 44. 



48 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"Has lie taken a peep into the mirror of his own soul, recoiled 
in horror, and taken vengeance against his Maker ? 

"Did he include himself in this sentence:* 'Most men are 
provincial, narrow, one-sided, only partially developed' ? Is the 
'little clearing' around his brain just large enough to practice 
law in, and the remainder of the farm a jungle of snakes and 
wild beasts? Do the poisonous serpents of hatred lie coiled in 
the brambles, sending out a chorus of hisses with the wild beasts 
of sophistry? 

"In all candor now, which causes his following, his logic or 
his rhetoric? 

"Axiom fourth.* 'Neither in the interest of truth, nor for 
the benefit of man, is it necessary to assert what we do not 
know.' 

"How about axiom second ? Does he know it was right for the 
thumb-screw to be? Does he know it was right for Guiteau to 
kill Garfield? Does he not see that reason, wherever it sits 
'crowned monarch' of his brain, will compel that man to place 
the mistakes, the errors, the world of tears and regrets in which 
poor, frail humanity is engulfed on the side of right ? Does he 
not see that he has done away with all wrong — that he has made 
a millennium on earth, or is he in accord with this philosopher? 

Whatever is, is right, says Pope — 

So said a sturdy thief; 
But when his fate required a rope. 

He varied his belief. 

"What! will not now your rule hold good?" 

The executioner cried : 
"Good rules," he said, "are understood 

By being well applied." 

"I would like to know if Colonel Ingersoll considers himself 
a civilized man. Does reason sit crowned monarch of his brain ? 
Are his passions his servants ? Is he very certain that Jehovah 
is a myth? Is he positive that axiom second is a truth? Fi- 
nally, and lastly (as the old-time preacher would say), why is it 
that he hates the God of Moses with such malignant hatred? 
Why is it that he expresses regret at the poverty of language — 



♦"Letter to Dr. Field," page 46. 



"Uncommonly Powerful in His Line/ 7 49 

at its paucity of objurgatory expressions, of its deficiency in 
vocabulary to furnish words to express his loathing of this 'mon- 
ster' — this 'Almighty Friend' of Dr. Field? 

"'Would not the old Hindoo prayer, with one word added, be 
a suitable prayer for many of us? 

"'Have mercy, God, upon' (me) 'the vicious; thou hast 
already had mercy upon the just by making them just.' 

"Crimination and recrimination in any discussion are always 
offensive to polite ears, but the doctrine of nonresistance, in 
the history of its evolution, and its struggle for existence, has 
never yet reached the highest pinnacle either of man's heart or 
head; so, to elucidate facts, strong language is at times indis- 
pensable. 

"Is not the fact of Colonel Ingersoll's denying God positive 
evidence that he has laid aside his reason? Are not these words, 
taken from his reply to Mr. Black, negative evidence of the 
same thing? 

" 'Never for an instant did I suppose that any respectable 
American citizen could be found willing at this day to defend 
the institution of slavery.' 

"Take axioms first and second in connection with this slavery 
question, and by syllogistic reasoning see if Isaac Taylor missed 
it much when he said : 

" 'The infatuations of the sensual and frivolous part of man- 
kind are amazing; but the infatuations of the learned and 
sophistical are incomparably more so.' 

"If slavery existed by a law of necessity, and Colonel Inger- 
-'.11 opposed it, and still denounces it as a crime, whether it 
- in 'world, star, heaven or hell'; and by his own testimony 
il can be proved by the best and most accurate mode of reason- 
ing known to man — by reasoning that is equivalent to a math- 
ematical demonstration — thai if had the right to be; then, T 
Colonel [ngersoll ougb.1 to recant, and ask pardon of his 
fellowmen for practicing this unwarrantable imposition upon 

them for SO ninny years. 

"I f he is an honesl man, he will do it. 

"These are his own words: 'Thai which happens must hap- 
pen.' 'That which musl be has the righl to be.' These seii- 
tences are disconnected from all others. They may be found 

4 



50 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

in the November number of this Review (holding up the 
book) — one on page 499, third and fourth lines from the bottom, 
and the other on page 476, second line from the bottom. 

"They admit of no interpretation. They mean just what 
they say. They are aphorisms which he has set up for the 
guidance of mankind. They include every event, every occur- 
rence, every incident, every phenomenon, which have taken 
place since the world began; and, what is worse, they make 
right of it all. They do away with all wrong. They abolish 
evil, and make God a liar. They stultify the human intellect, 
and make the thumbscrew one of the mainsprings of equity. 
They place human slavery and human freedom in the scales of 
justice and make the beam poise. They make Anubis a justi- 
fied god in the Temple of Isis, and the debauchment of the 
chaste Paulina a virtue. They make wars, pestilence, famine, 
widows and orphans, beggary, and 'man's inhumanity to man,' 
'glad tidings of great joy.' 

"They make a boomerang of these words : 

" 'Slavery includes all other crimes. It is the joint product of 
the kidnapper, pirate, thief, murderer, and hypocrite. It de- 
grades labor and corrupts leisure. To lacerate the naked back, 
to sell wives, to steal babes, to breed bloodhounds, to debauch 
your own soul — this is slavery. This is what Jehovah "author- 
ized in Judea." This is what Mr. Black believes in still.'* 
And, mirabile dictu, this is what Colonel Ingersoll says had a 
right to be. O Consistency, thou art indeed a jewel, but im- 
bedded still in the head of a toad! 

"Suppose that Colonel Ingersoll should say, 'A straight line 
is not the shortest distance between two points — a crooked line 
or a curved one is shorter than a straight line' ; and suppose 
he should then call to his assistance all the adjectives in the 
English language, and import all the slang phrases and objur- 
gations of all the savage dialects on the globe, and hurl them 
against the originators of the mathematical sciences; and then 
suppose that he should go over to the great fish market of Lon- 
don, and gather up all the billingsgate of that Alsatian den, 
and electroplate and gild it, and sugar-coat it, and try to force 
it down the throats of the American people — do you suppose 



♦"Reply to Mr. Black," page 485. 



"Uncommonly Powerful in His Line" 51 

they would swallow it? And do you suppose that his frantic 
appeals would disturb the equipoise of the great principles of 
mathematics ? 

"With modest diffidence we would suggest that he study the 
principles of logic more, and Roget's Thesaurus less. 

"Axiom fifth. 'Everything is right that tends to the happi- 
ness of mankind, and everything is wrong that increases the 
sum of human misery.'* 

"The Colonel answers questions readily that the wisest and 
best have hesitated over. Pilate on one occasion asked a Divine 
person, 'What is truth?' He received no answer, unless the 
rebuke of silence was an answer. 

"The above answer to the questions, 'What is right, and what 
is wrong?' would seem plausible, and would raise no objection 
in the mind of the average man; neither would an affirmative 
answer to the question, 'Is the Golden Rule perfect?' surprise 
the majority of people. 

"Remember that no assertion can be the whole truth and 
nothing but the truth, if a single fact in the whole universe 
impinges upon that assertion. Colonel Ingersoll himself says: 
'There is a continual effort in the mind of man to find the har- 
mony that he knows must exist between all known facts. 'f Such 
a picture as this has been seen in a civilized household in mod- 
era times : 

"A woman of moderate mental endowments has been joined 
in the holy bonds of matrimony (one of Colonel Ingersoll's 
shrines of worship) to a man of a low order of intelligence, 
much lower than hers; yet he is kind, humane, loving. To the 
extent of his ability he provides for his family. He loves his 
wife and children, and his neighbors say of him, 'He is a clever 
fellow, l)in he has very little souse' His journey through life 
is beset with difficulties which require brains to combat them. 
Beinu: deficient in this respect, the difficulties surround and 
close in upon him. He becomes involved financially, and his 
children grow up a burden, because of their mental insu'iiciency. 
His property is under mortgage; but his friends arc staunch, 
and w;iit patiently, because he is honest, because he is indus- 
trious, because he is good. His family is Large. Mis half- 



♦"Divided Household of Faith." t "Reply to Mr. Black," pa 



52 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

witted children are stout and strong. They have good appe- 
tites. They work under their father's directions. They labor 
hard and willingly. 

"They are good beasts of burden. But the result of all their 
toil, all their sweat, all their pains is insufficient to raise the 
mortgage, to cancel the debt, to provide for their daily wants. 
The pinch of poverty is being felt in that family. The father's 
brow is clouded, and he is beginning to doubt the justice of God. 
The mother's hands are horny with toil, and her face haggard 
with anxiety. The children, with one exception, are unable to 
appreciate the situation. They are becoming dissatisfied and 
threaten to leave. They can see no good in unremitting and 
unremunerative labor. Despair is hovering over that house- 
hold, and, but for an episode of previous years, would sit down 
with that family and stay. 

"When the mother was younger, and her animal spirits 
higher, she formed the acquaintance of a man whose intellect 
was keen, whose eye was bright, and whose vivacity of manner 
was captivating. In an evil moment a liaison was formed, and 
her exceptional child came into the world with a keen eye, a 
bright intellect, and a handsome face. 

" 'Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone, 
His heart unbiased, and his mind his own. 
No sickly fruit of faint compliance he ; 
He ! stamped in nature's mint with ecstasy ! 
He lives to build, not boast, a generous race; 
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.' 

■ "This boy takes in the situation. As mind has power over 
matter, he arranges with his father and his brothers. Suc- 
cess crowns his efforts, and the household is blessed. His 
mother's face puts on a smile, and she is the only one in the 
wide world who knows Avhy. 

"Was her faux pas a right action because good resulted 
from it? 

"Here is another picture that may be seen constantly on the 
easel the world over : 

"A young woman of social standing, education, morality, and 
beauty enters the same holy bonds of wedlock with her equal in 



"Uncommonly Powerful in His Line." 53 

all respects. The marriage-bells peal with, joy, and many 
friends smile and congratulate. This occasion is one of pride, 
and the whole world recognizes it as being legal and correct. 
The consequence of this faultless step is extra-uterine concep- 
tion. Suffering and death follow. 

" 'The sum of human misery is increased. "What can reason 
say to axiom fifth? 

" 'Xeither in the interest of truth, nor for the benefit of man, 
is it necessary to assert what we do not know.'* 

"Is Colonel Ingersoll working in the interest of truth? Is 
he working for the benefit of man? Does he assert only what 
he knows ? Are his conclusions logical deductions from his own 
axioms? Is this the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth ? This, 'That which must be has the right to be.' 

"Is it for the benefit of man that he says this : 'If in this 
world there is a figure of perfect purity, it is a mother holding 
in her thrilled and happy arms her child' ?j- Does he assert 
only what he knows when he says this: 'An infinite God has no 
excuse for leaving his children in doubt and darkness'?! In 
another place, he says : 'I have had no experience with gods.' 

"How can a man say what anybody or anything ought or 
ought not to do when he has had no experience with the person, 
thing, or circumstance? 

"There is one sentence in Colonel Ingersoll's reply to Mr. 
Black, the drollery of which under all circumstances excites my 
risibles. I can't look at that sentence without laughter, and I 
can't think about it without a smile. It is this : 

" 'Will Mr. Black have the kindness to state a few of his 
objections to the devil?' 

"Now, will Colonel Ingersoll have the kindness to state his 
opinion of the 'perfect purity' of the figure of a mother holding 
in her anus her illegitimate child? 

"To pervert truth, to sophisticate nature, philosophy, or the 
understanding, to bend the mighty energies of the human intel- 
lect under a load of such ponderous magnitude as the doctrine 
of absolute atheism, entails a war in which the divine gift of 



♦"Letter to Dr. Field," page 46. ["Reply to Mr. Black," page 487. 
fLetter to Dr. Field," pace 40. 



54 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

speech, is made the battering-ram of justice, and the confusion 
of sophistical reasoning is employed to entrap innocence and 
prostitute virtue. 

"Colonel Ingersoll must have got a glimpse of his own, when 
he said : 'I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flick- 
ering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night.'* Or he 
may be under the influence of that chameleon sprite ' Supersti- 
tion,' as it leads in the van of human darkness, charming the 
eye with its cymophanous light, and forming a mirage of iri- 
descent halos around the crown of human thought. 

"If he will analyze his own sayings in the light of pure 
reason, if he will place his philosophy in the scales of justice 
and test its specific gravity with that of the superstition he 
so mercilessly condemns, he may find that they both tip the 
beam at zero ; that opiniatry, not reason, is the 'flickering torch 
by stumblers carried in the starless night.' 

"When a system of philosophy is open to so many adverse 
criticisms; when the glare of analysis casts a dark shade over 
statements purporting to be truth; and when a code of ethics 
reveals error under the sharp scalpel of reason, may we not 
doubt the infallibility of a theology based upon denial, and 
whose only support is ridicule? 

"It has been said that every man makes his own god. 

"Colonel Ingersoll hates Jehovah because Jehovah tolerates 
slavery. 

"Can hatred alter a fact? He hates the rheumatism, but can 
he convince the sufferers from that disease that rheumatism is 
a myth because he hates it? Rheumatism can be positively 
known to the sufferers only. If Colonel Ingersoll never had 
the rheumatism, how does he know such a disease exists? Is 
he not obliged to believe it from the testimony of others? 

"Perhaps he never had the toothache. Can he tell when an- 
other man has it? Or, doesn't he believe in toothache because 
he has had no experience with it? He may say that it stands 
to reason, that a decayed tooth should ache, or that an inflamed 
joint should pain. Very well, how about the pains of partu- 
rition? He assuredly has had no experience in that line. 

"Is pregnancy a disease and parturition a result of violated 



'Divided Household of Faith." 



"Uncommonly Powerful in His Line." 55 

law? Are the throes of labor sanitary, pleasureful or in any 
way for the good of the woman? Are they one of the conse- 
quences of a bad action? He says, 'Actions are good or bad 
according to their consequences.' If he says there is nothing 
bad in the pains of parturition, I will confront his testimony 
by the testimony of every mother in the land. Will he deny 
the existence of these pains because he has had no experience 
with them? 

"In his reply to Dr. Field, he says, 'I have had no experience 
with gods ; there can be no evidence to my mind of the existence 
of such a being.' N"ow, as Colonel Ingersoll has had no expe- 
rience with the pains of childbirth, I would like to know if 
there can be any evidence to his mind of the existence of such 
pains, save the bare statement of the woman. 

"Exclude the 'dark continent of motive and desire,' and let 
the 'poor sovereign' of 'that wondrous world with one inhab- 
itant' say whether there can be any more evidence to his mind 
of the existence of these pains than there can be of the existence 
of an infinite being. "We have the bare statement of the woman 
for the pains, and nothing else. We have the statements of 
both men and women for the existence of God. The amount 
of positive evidence is much greater for the existence of God 
than for the existence of labor pains, and, in addition to the 
positive, we have both negative and rationalistic evidence. 

"The strongest negative evidence for the existence of God is, 
that no other nor all other theories will account for the facts 
of the universe. 

"Admitting God will account for everything. 

"The rationalistic evidence for the existence of God is the 
stepping 1 1 1 > to him by the ladder of the human mind. 

"Now, unless a man is lost in the 'treacherous Bands and 
dangerous shores' of this 'dark continent of motive and desire ' 
he musl see that it is no harder to believe in Qod than it is to 
believe in the rotundity of the earth, or the existence of China. 

"'I have had do experience with gods/ therefore there is do 
God. 

"Is this syllogistic reasoning? [& Colonel [ngersoll dishonest, 

or is lie unwise? He set- up ;i ureal deal of negative evidence 
to prove that lie is not dishonest. 



56 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"Error is ever the result of ignorance or dishonesty. It 
never comes from any other source. 

"If he is dishonest, then the contest is only between ignorance 
and right. A good part of the better world says he is not right. 
According to his own definition of right and wrong, he is either 
wrong or inconsistent. I think he himself will agree that in- 
consistency cannot be right. Then if inconsistency cannot be 
right, the Colonel must be wrong. Being wrong and being 
honest at the same time, he must admit that he is ignorant. 

"Being ignorant, he ought not to set himself up for a teacher. 
If he persists in teaching, then he must deny that he is wrong 
or he must deny that he is honest. Being honest, however, 
there is nothing left but to say he is wrong; and being wrong, 
he is not fit to teach. Being unfit to teach, he ought to quit. 
This is a test of his honesty. Will he quit, or will he persist in 
his error, or will he endeavor to learn the truth? 

"He says,* 'We should do all within our power to inform, to 
educate, and to benefit our fellowmen.' Is he doing it? If 
so, by what means? Are his axioms a measure of his power? 
Where does his strength lie? 

"Colonel Ingersoll has certainly missed his calling. He 
ought to have been a preacher. That profession would have 
enabled him to expound his sophistry, to promulgate his max- 
ims and contradictions to his heart's content, without offense. 
And he could in pious humility have prayed with 'Holy Willie' : 

" 'I bless and praise thy matchless might, 
When thousands thou hast left in night, 
That I am here afore thy sight 

For gifts and grace. 
A burnin' and a shinin' light 

To a' this place.' 

"He reasons after the manner of the revivalist. He occupies 
a place in the literary and philosophical world similar to Jay 
Gould's position in the financial world. He is neither Jew nor 
Gentile. He is the special phenomenon of the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury. He has pitted himself single-handed against the states- 



*"Divided Household of Faith. 



"Uncommonly Powerful in His Line." 57 

man, the theologian, and the jurist. In many cases he has been 
the victor. He seeks notoriety as Gould seeks money — it mat- 
ters little how he gets it. 

"He has studied human nature and learned its weaknesses. 

"While he holds up reason as the ultima thule of all that is 
desirable, he tempers his words to the capacity of the average 
man — well knowing that the mote which blinds his own eye has 
a magnified image in the eyes of the great majority of his 
fellows. 

"He has learned the unfortunate fact, that it is not so much 
what a man says, but nearly all depends upon how he says it. 

"Reason, that mighty fetich of his idolatrous homage, is to 
him and his followers a flamboyant light, encircled with halos 
and spectral shadows— delusive in itself, and, siren-like, leading 
its votaries on to a willing death. 

"Mr. Ingersoll should stop and think. The people should 
stop and think, before they indorse him. 

" 'Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good/ but don't 
say, 'Everything is right that tends to the happiness of man- 
kind, and everything is wrong that increases the sum of human 
misery/ And don't say, 'That which must be has the right to 
be.' And don't say, 'Ignorance and credulity sustain the rela- 
tion of cause and effect.' And don't say, 'Acts are good or bad 
according to their consequences, and not according to the in- 
tentions of the actors.' And, above all things, don't say, 'In 
the nature of things there can be no evidence of the existence 
of an infinite being.' " 

The train stopped and the lecturer got up to leave. He was 
billed to this town for his "celebrated lecture," and a large con- 
course of people with a brass band had come to the depot to 
welcome him. 

lie had listened with great attention to the long discourse of 
the old teacher, and many times lie had strongly fell the impulse 
to interrupt, but being a good listener as well as a good talker, 
he had sat with the others, mute and patient. 

His cynical eye beamed with a sardonic twinkle as he reached 
out his hand to bid the old gentleman goodbye, and he could 
not refrain from asking a few personal questions in regard to 
the old man's life history. 



58 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"My good friend," he said, "I am going to leave you here, 
and while I have been entertained in a variety of ways with 
your companionship, I am curious to know if you are a man 
of family." 

"]STo," answered the old man, "I have never been married." 
"Have you made a fortune by your profession of teaching?" 
"I have never had time to think about making money." 
"Without family, a man of your age must be somewhat alone 
in the world." 

"A man cannot be very much alone in the world who has 
friends at home, and books wherever he goes." 

"Can friends and books satisfy the cravings of the human 
heart? Is ambition stayed by a taste of others' glory? Is it 
nothing to be known — to be heralded on the wings of the wind — 
to come in contact with the great and the learned? 

"You contend for principles, while the world neither under- 
stands nor appreciates you. The majority of men love to be 
cheated, and will pay handsomely for the service. Poverty is 
the Muses' patrimony. Saturn and Mercury, the patrons of 
learning, are both dry planets. 

" 'And to this clay is every scholar poor ; 

Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor.' 

"Good-bye," and, shaking the old man's hand, he stepped out 
of the car. 

"Do you know that man ?" asked a clerical-looking gentleman 
on the opposite seat. 

"JSTo." 

"That is Colonel Ingersoll." 






BOOK II 



PREFACE TO BOOK II 



Yoltaiee said, "Books are made from books." This is true 
to some extent with the present volume, but I flatter myself that 
it contains some ideas not found in other books. While I have 
culled from others, often quoting the exact language where it 
expressed the thought better than I could — plagiarized, if you 
will — I make no apology for the alicujus scripta furtum. 

My endeavor has been to write something to set men a-think- 
ing. Logic is hard, and philosophy dry unless interspersed with 
a certain degree of variety and abruptness. 

To this end I have endeavored to weave in a bit of romance 
without writing a novel. The characters I have introduced are 
two men of opposite modes of thought. One is a materialist, 
the other a spiritualist ; one a free-thinker, the other a believer ; 
one an infidel, the other a Christian. I have given free-rein to 
the thoughts of each one, and if the religious controversy is un- 
satisfactory to any Christian reader, the fault is in the substance 
and not in its application. 

In the answers to the material philosophy, I have culled from 
the best books on Theology, and had the aid of some of the 
ripest scholars in the land. Among those to whom I would ex- 
press gratitude and thanks are Rev. Dr. Borden P. Bowne of 
Boston, Rev. Dr. M. W. Prince of Dickinson College, Carlisle, 
Pa., and "W. A. Candler, Bishop of the Southern Methodist 
Church. The local clergy of every denomination have been uni- 
formly kind in suggestions and hints for aids to the faith. 

I have excluded the Bible from either side as authority; 
allowing both to quote, where the quotation is apt. 

Dogma has been excluded. The basis of the book is reason 
and experience. 

The Bchoolmaster is a real character who figured as a local 
celebrity for many years in Eastern Carolina. Most of the 
oddities attributed to him were real traits, and with a few em- 
bellishments, his true character is portrayed here. The quota- 
tion, Homo multaruiii litterarum never filled a man better. 

The "Wandering Jew" is made up, partly from lea-end. and 
partly from fancy. lie is a Christian pure and simple. 



The Journey Home. 63 



BOOK II. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE JOURNEY HOME. 

After the lecturer left the car, and Mr. Eliot learned that he 
had been talking, all the while, to Colonel Ingersoll, a feeling of 
dismay took possession of his mind as a first reaction from ex- 
citing debate; but later, a sense of quiet satisfaction ensued at 
having unwittingly told some pertinent truths to the right man. 
While he had so disciplined his mind as to bring most of his 
faculties into subjection to his will, yet, at times, he found pleas- 
ure in yielding to the play of fancy. In solitude, especially 
after such a mental strain as he had just undergone, he would 
court the slavery of imagination, indulge the power of fiction, 
and send the fancy out upon the wing to cull from all imagina- 
ble conditions that which for the present moment he should 
most desire. In this frame of mind he passed the rest of his 
journey, being neither disposed to talk nor to read ; musing over 
the problem of life, contrasting the good with the evil in the 
world, wondering at the blindness of man, yet, amazed at his 
intellectual attainments ; sympathizing with the cheerless gloom 
of the pessimist, and rejoicing in the buoyant courage of the 
optimist, his reveries ran in a never-ending chase, with thought 
pursuing thought, and vision succeeding vision as the monoto- 
nous roar of the train lulled the senses and disposed the mind to 
quietude and calm. 

The centers of thought suffered their powers of analysis to 
give way to the pleasing fancies of revery, and the old man's 
eyelids drooped as his head reclined to the corner of his seat. 

Half Bleeping and half waking, the dynamical powers of an 
active brain ran riot over Scenes of the past, and conjured up 

visions of the future greatness of man. 

Memory, thai chaste goddess of the righteous and fell demon 
of the reprobate, pursued the phantoms of bygone days, evoked 
the shades of dead heroes; and, unlocking the ponderous doors 

of the greal mausoleum of ancient philosophy, spread a feast 



64 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

for the imagination unparalleled in its richness and beauty; 
and, barring the shapeless scenes of carnage, of blood, of murder 
and hypocrisy, the mad strife for gain, and the callous hatred 
of man toward man, would gild the book of life and leave the 
Stygian pool unstirred by the dip of a single wailing soul. His 
fidelity to the human intellect could neither be shaken by fraud 
nor weakened by deception. The power of thought to him was 
the light which shineth in the darkness, and his highest concep- 
tion of Deity was a being of boundless knowledge. To know 
had been his lifelong labor — to know truth — to know error, and 
to be able to distinguish between the two. He believed with a 
childlike faith that man could know the truth, that error was 
an evil only as it is misunderstood, and that ignorance had been 
the cause of all mischief. 

Cause and effect, he regarded as inseparably linked from eter- 
nity — what has been was the result of sheer necessity. He even 
went so far as to subscribe to the paradoxical creed which has 
been caricatured by the opponents of a certain school of Reli- 
gionists, as, "What is to be, will be, if it never is." 

Evil he regarded as necessary, a contrast which makes possible 
the good. A world without evil would be an unfit habitation 
for man. The Omniscient and Omnipotent Power which cre- 
ated the world and man, knew that evil was a necessity, knew 
that light could not exist without darkness, that peace would be 
an impossibility without discord, and, hence, it is written, 

"I form the light and create darkness ; I make peace and create 
evil. I, the Lord, do all these things," 

The labor of cogitation is too violent to last long, and the 
reveries of fancy will finally end in slumber. Then it is that 
the indefinable state we call dreaming takes possession of the 
mind and we live as it were in another world. It is said by 
those who have paid most attention to the subject, that we dream 
only of those things which in the past have made some impres- 
sion on the mind; that to dream of things we never thought of 
is impossible, and the fact of our not remembering them is no 
evidence of the impression never having been made; that the 
mind registers every thought, every imprint received, and that 
this register is indestructible, ineffaceable and eternal. 



The Journey Home. 65 

The old man dreamed as he reclined upon his seat and slept. 
He dreamed of his childhood, his youth and his manhood. He 
dreamed of his mother long since dead. He dreamed of his 
school-days when his mind first began to take fitful glances at 
the tree of knowledge, when he saw the golden fruit dangling 
far beyond his reach. The relish with which he imbibed his 
first draught of knowledge returned in his slumber, and a smile 
played upon his features like the smile of an innocent babe. 
Visions as unreal and fantastic as the chaos of thought passed 
before his mental sight and vanished, one after another, like 
dissolving views. The monotonous roar of the train, the 
cramped position and half rest of the weary traveler contrib- 
uted to this mental phantasmagoria. He dreamed of the 
mountain he had climbed with weary steps to get only a glimpse 
of the truth. He saw error on every side of his path, and the 
yawning chasm of falsehood feasting with hungry eye and glut- 
tonous maw upon the fairest of mankind. A panoramic view 
of the intellectual development of the human race from the 
earliest dawn of history to the present time, ran a steeple-chase 
before his drowsy eyes, and he saw man in the savage state 
modelling for himself a God, to whom he transferred concep- 
tions of himself, and worshiped in the humility of self-love, 
and the fear of self-immolation. He saw the priesthood in the 
long vista of the past, either from superstitious honesty, or 
knavery, or both mixed, standing like an incubus in the way of 
human progress. He saw the dumb idols of Paganism sitting in 
eternal silence upon the throne of ignorance and fear. And 
then the beautiful image of a God-man came into view, about 
whose countenance a halo of glory shone in resplendent hues of 
love, and peace, and good-will toward mom 

The scene quickly changed, and a fountain of pure, limpid, 
sparkling water gushed forth from a rock, and meandered slowly 
amongsl men, slaking the thirst of the weary, and washing the 

soiled fingers of the vile and the wretched. Here the leper w;is 

cleansed, the bait, the lame, and the blind made whole. The 
broken-hearted and miserable found in ii a healing lotion for 
the sore spots on the soul, and exchanged here, their grief for 
joy. The vilest sinner w;is never refused a drink, and the poor 
were made welcome, without money and without price. An im- 



66 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

mense sign in golden letters stood over the rock, proclaiming 
freedom and equality, while a melodious voice was heard saying, 

"Come, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest." 

The scene changed again : A broad, deep, and turbid torrent 
rushed along, sweeping before it human freedom, and drawing 
into its whirling eddies the progress, civilization, and culture 
of ages. Upon its bosom floated magnificent palaces in which 
the Priest and Levite held high carnival, where aves vehement 
hailed the degradation of man, and ignorance was held to be the 
mother of devotion. For a thousand years the tainted stream 
watered the earth and gave drink to man. Intoxicated with 
the Stygian draught, the gaping multitude crouched before, and 
paid homage to the gorgeous panoply. Reason abdicated her 
throne, and hallucinations born of religious zeal directed the 
affairs of State. The world went to sleep and the old man 
waked up with a groan. 

Partly the uneasy sleep, but mainly the misshapen dream, 
caused this audible expression of pain. Rubbing his eyes, and 
collecting his thoughts, he contemplated the past history of 
Christendom with a sorrowful countenance, and looking out 
upon the beautiful country he was traveling over with such 
lightning speed, his amazement found expression in words, but 
his voice was drowned in the roar of the swiftly moving train. 
He said to himself, "How is it that so turbid a torrent could 
have flowed from so pure a fountain, and yet persist in claiming 
that fountain as its source? By what combination of human 
passion, perversity, and misconception could have grown up 
or been extracted anything so marvelously unlike its original 
as the current creeds of Christendom ? 

"Out of the teachings of perhaps the most sternly anti-sacer- 
dotal prophet who ever inaugurated a new religion, has been 
built up about the most pretentious and oppressive priesthood 
that ever weighed down the enterprise and the energy of the 
human mind. Christian worship, in its most prevailing form, 
has been made to consist in rites and ceremonies, in sacraments 
and feasts and fasts and periodic prayers. Jesus taught his 
disciples to trust in, and to worship a tender Father, long-suffer- 



The Journey Home. 67 

ing and plenteous in mercy: — those who speak in his name in 
these latter days, tell us rather of a relentless Judge, in whose 
picture, as they draw it, it is hard to recognize either justice 
or compassion. Theologians transmogrify the pure precepts 
and devotion of Jesus into a religion as nearly as possible their 
opposite, and then decree that whoever will not adopt their trav- 
esty 'without doubt shall perish everlastingly.' 

"Priestcraft, in some form, has dominated the human mind 
from the remotest ages, but the very masterpiece of human wis- 
dom has been developed in the polity of the Church of Rome. 
The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity 
and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, have im- 
proved that polity to such perfection, that, among the contriv- 
ances which have been devised for deceiving and oppressing 
mankind, it occupies the highest place." After this soliloquy, 
the tired traveler lapsed into a sort of trance or semi-conscious 
state, in which the old spectacle which so disturbed Jeremiah 
was reproduced before his eyes : 

"Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord; shall not my 
soul be avenged on such a nation as this? A wonderful and horrible 
thing is committed in the land : the prophets prophesy falsely, and 
the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have 
it so: and what will you do in the end thereof?" 

"What will you do V said the echo. "Do ?" answered the old 
man, as he resumed the conscious state, "I will continue to teach. 
I will teach the young and the old. I will combat error and pro- 
mulgate truth. I will formulate a creed in accordance with the 
highest attributes of humanity — a creed that will cover up the 
ugly places in man's nature and fit him for the exercise of thai 
love which is so much spoken of and so little realized. I will 
show to those that have eyes to see, and courage to look, thai the 
orthodox creeds of to-day are nothing more than sewage dipped 
from the filthy si roam which drowned, for ;> thousand years, the 
progress of man. 1 will show the priest of to-day with the same 
mark of the priest of yesterday. 1 will hold up the true Image 
of God in man thai nil may see. Instead of a serpent of brass, 
I will lift up Reason, and ask the people to think. It will not 



68 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

be a 'prostitute seated on a chair of state in the chancel of Notre 
Dame/ but it will be that likeness which commanded a council 
of the triune Godhead — a convocation of the Elohim for its 
making. It will be the image which draws the line between 
man and brute, the image which has been a nightmare and re- 
proach to priestcraft in all ages, and which religious iconoclasm 
has always endeavored to smirch and destroy. This beautiful 
picture, like its glory-crowned Archetype, will not fade. Its 
beacon light will yet lift man from the slime and miasm of the 
putrid river of superstition and fear. It will not down at the 
hest of a Beecher, a Talmage, nor a Pope of Eome. It will 
eventually preside over the spiritual, as it now presides over the 
temporal affairs of man. It will continue to shine till God will 
be seen through the intellect of man. Indeed, this image is the 
spiritual light, and the only spiritual light, which is able to 
make and guide a spiritual faith. Without this light, faith 
would be an unknown factor in the evolution of man. Without 
this light, man would be no more religious than the brute. Take 
away reason, and those subsidiary faculties denominated moral 
and religious, would vanish, as the shadow vanishes on with- 
drawing the light. Faith, which is the crowning glory of man, 
and which enables him to look beyond the finite into the infinite, 
is the last link in the chain of that intellectual endowment 
which makes him a moral and religious being. A faith which 
looks no higher for its source than its secondary causes, is like 
an oblation to an insensible, motionless idol, sitting with sight- 
less eyeballs, staring on vacuity. This is the faith which the 
current creeds of Christendom inculcate. This is the 'wonderful 
and horrible thing committed in the land.' " 

The approach toward home had been rapid and continuous. 
The teacher began to feel the balmy air, and to sniff the balsamic 
odor of his native pine forests. On the sand-hills of North 
Carolina he had been bred and born, and spent most of his long 
and blameless life. Here he felt at home. Here were his 
friends, and here he loved to be. The great West, with its mud 
and its sluggish streams, was an uninviting soil to an old man 
who loved to walk. The North was cold and dreary. Its bustle, 
and its keen rivalry of personal interests, contrasted unfavor- 
ably with the calm of a Southern fireside. 



The Journey Home. 69 

Money-making was out of his line and foreign to his thoughts. 
He failed to appreciate the hurry which gave little time to sleep- 
ing, and less for eating. He was proud of the great strides the 
world was making in material benefits, but the bent of his mind 
lay in the abstract rather than concrete. The world called him 
a dreamer, theorizer — an oddity. He was more like a dime in 
a barrel of coppers. At last, the train drew up at a little way- 
station on the Atlantic Coast Line Road, and the schoolmaster, 
from being "abroad," was at home. 



70 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK II. 

THE TRACK IN THE ROAD. 

Around the little station lounged a few idlers, to whom he 
raised his hat and asked concerning their health. Being travel- 
worn and dusty, he proceeded at once to his home, five miles 
distant. His gait was awkward, for his hack was very much 
bowed, and his strides long and deliberate. He habitually 
walked with his head down, as if in meditation. The idlers 
laughed, as empty pates always laugh at wisdom. 

Proceeding on his path, his eye caught the impress of a shoe 
which arrested his attention. The track was peculiar. The 
heeltap made an impression in the soft earth, which, in the 
present state of the old man's mind, caused him to watch every 
step, and to wonder at the arrangement of the nails. An ordi- 
nary shoe-heel is fastened by driving the nails on the outside 
rim, with scattering ones on the inside, and occasionally one in 
the center. This track was broad, and the nails in the heel 
formed a perfect cross. There were seven nails in each heel, 
and wherever the earth permitted a perfect track the imprint 
was thus : 



This impress of a shoe, constantly before the old man's eye, 
caused his thoughts to turn back to his dream and his tedious 
ride on the car. He had often seen a cruciform jewel around 
the neck of a girl, or linked to the chain of a watch, but the 
idea of stamping the earth, at every step of a man, with an 
emblem of sacred truth exceeded his experience and excited his 
curiosity. His thirst after knowledge was sometimes eclipsed 
by his desire to scan a motive. Here was an incident which 
might be of peculiar interest, a shoe-track with the sign of the 
cross imbedded in the heel. "The wearer of this shoe must have 
a history, a story to tell, a secret burthen to bear. He may 
have committed an offence — a sin — for which his conscience is 
lashing, and his soul still endeavoring to expiate. It may be 
that he is simply superstitious, and wears this talisman to ward 
off evil. Perhaps he is an idle vagabond, without motive in 



The Track in the Road. 71 

carrying this emblem of the religion of Christ, and without 
knowledge of its import. At all events, I am curions to see this 
shoe, to talk with its wearer, and to know what it means." 

These were the thoughts which passed through the old man's 
mind, as he unconsciously quickened his gait, hoping to over- 
take the maker of the tracks. As he turned a curve, a long 
straight stretch in the road almost made him despair when he 
saw no sign of a pedestrian, however much he strained his 
vision. 

"Distance," it is said, "lends enchantment to the view." If 
enchantment could mean a palpitating impulse, a craving desire 
to move faster than one can walk, this long stretch in the road, 
punctuated at every step with the mystic symbol of a deathless 
dogma, would charm the old man's eye and gladden his heart. 
But the heat of the day and his anxiety to overtake the walker 
dissipated the mirage, and left him at the end of the course, short 
of breath, and full of perspiration. His ardor, however, was 
not diminished. The tracks appeared more recent; he was evi- 
dently gaining on the shoe. All at once, as he started down a 
slope in the road, he espied a man sitting on the foot-log of a 
sand-hill stream, bathing his feet. At this sight, the old man's 
heart leaped for joy. Bathing was one of his cardinal virtues, 
and he thoroughly believed with Pope, that cleanliness is next 
to godliness. Slacking his pace, he removed his hat and with a 
large bandanna wiped the perspiration from his forehead. He 
was now within a few steps of the shoe, and where he could 
take a critical view of the man. Ho was about to make a greet- 
ing, when his attention became so utterly absorbed at the appear- 
ance before him, that words failed, and his motions ceased. 
II<- stood ae it* nailed to the spot. The individual before him 
bad the appearance of age and youth combined. EQs counte- 
nance betrayed bis Semitic origin, and bis features were typical 
of the modern .Jew. Dpon ;i general view he appeared to he in 

the prime of life, hut a close inspection gave the impression of 

extreme age. Wrinkles combined with a rosy cheek, boary 

Locks with a juvenile look, ;i hrillianl eye in ;i -nnkeii orhit; 

these and other odd characteristics, together with hi- die-- and 
-hoc-, so amazed the schoolmaster, thai he ventured not a word 
nnt il t he h;n h was finished. 



72 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

An odd trait in the character of the old teacher has not yet 
been mentioned. However much he might wish to know your 
opinion, he never asked a direct question. While his curiosity 
was equal to that of Mother Eve, he would beat about the bush 
to get what he wanted, rather than risk the possible odium of 
being considered a Paul Pry. To ask him a direct question 
was, also, equivalent to getting no answer. These characteris- 
tics of a cautious mind were often complained of by his pupils. 
The impatient ones thought his method tedious and dilatory. 
Especially did those who had been taught in the usual way 
object to making haste slowly. At the end of each term, how- 
ever, the impress of vigilance was stamped more or less distinctly 
upon the mind of every one who came under his influence. 

At this moment, the conflict between caution and curiosity 
was vividly displayed in his countenance. His nostrils dilated, 
his mouth twitched, and his eyes blinked. He was in a dilemma. 
He wanted to speak, but the proper salutation would not come 
forward. 

Just as the traveler took up a shoe, the old man said : "Hail, 
friend ! good afternoon." 

"God be with you," replied the stranger, continuing to put 
on the shoe. 

"I almost grudge you the pleasure of your bath this sultry 
day, for I am footsore and tired." 

"If the water were scarce," said the stranger, "your grudge 
might be excusable, but thanks to Providence there is enough 
for both ; take a seat and enjoy my refreshment." 

"Thanks : — in easy reach of home, I will defer a part for the 
whole, and there enjoy what I most urgently desire and need. 
I have traveled much by rail and foot; am dusty, and my rai- 
ment is out of repair." 

"Traveled much? Ah! my friend, you know not what you 
say. No one knows what traveling means but he whose only de- 
sire is rest." 

"Rest is a great boon to the weary." 

"Yes, indeed! and to all but me there is a promise saying, 

" 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will 
give you rest.' " 



The Track in the Road. 73 

This was said in such, an agonizing tone of despair, with a 
countenance depicting such utter wretchedness, that the school- 
master, in spite of his stoical philosophy, averted his eye, and 
cast about for something to change the current of thought. In 
this he made a bad selection, for the other shoe of the traveler 
lay just in front and riveted his attention. Fascinated by the 
shoe, unable to change the current of thought, he yielded to the 
impulse, and spoke of the tracks. 

"For some distance back," he said, "I have noticed a strange 
mark in the road, rhythmical with the step of a man — in fact, a 
mould of that very step — which, on account of its unwonted 
connection with a track, has excited in me a most lively interest, 

and " Here the stranger took up the shoe and handed it 

to the old man, asking him at the same time to examine and see 
if it had any connection with the track. His curiosity would 
be gratified ; he might possibly learn something. 

On taking the shoe in his hand, he was forcibly struck with 
its ancient look, and yet surprised at no appearance of wear. 
It looked as if it might be a thousand years old, and at the same 
time every edge was sharp-cut, the sole had hardly lost its pol- 
ish, and the heel as trim as when first taken from the last. It 
was pliant and glossy save a thin coating of dust from recent 
use. The cross formed by the nails in the heel stood out in re- 
lief, sharp-cut and bright. The balance of the shoe was in- 
describable. It appeared to be made of scraps — parings from 
the cobbler's knife joined together in so skillful a manner as to 
defy detection. The pieces were of every shape and size, and 
put together in every conceivable manner, yet dovetailed and 
fitted with such accuracy and finish as to form a surface re- 
Bembling the modern alligator leather. 

The high ten-ion of the old man's curiosity was being grati- 
fied in one direction, and in another doubly excited. He began 
Jo see the Outlines of Strange characters in these scallopy inoscu- 
lations. Some of them resembled letters, others hieroglyphics. 
Being a classical scholar, and versed in antique Lore, be traced 
the alphabets of many ancient languages. 

lie looked long enough to see that these Letters formed words, 
and the words formed sentences. Dumfounded, he handed the 



74 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

shoe back to the stranger with this simple remark: "The track 
must have been made by this shoe." 

The interest excited by the track eclipsed itself in the shoe. 

"The Old Ghost" was lost to the external world. His brain 
was in a whirl. Doubter as he was, he began to suspect his 
own sanity. He had met with more than he bargained for. If 
the appearances before him were real, he was on the verge of a 
revelation. The more he looked at the man, the more he thought 
of the shoe, the more he was puzzled. His long talk with Inger- 
soll, his troubled dream on the car, his ride, his walk, the heat 
of the day, his present company, all contributed to a state of 
mental perturbation unusual with the old philosopher. 

Collecting his thoughts by a strong effort of the will, he de- 
termined to work out the problem if tact and perseverance 
would sustain him. The man, if a lunatic, appeared to be harm- 
less — he would invite him to his home. 

In the meantime the stranger had put on both shoes and was 
ready to resume his walk. 

The schoolmaster was nearing his home, and suggested, as 
the day was nearly spent and the traveler must be tired, that he 
would call and spend the night with him. To this invitation 
the pedestrian thankfully assented. 

Mr. Eliot was so well pleased with his success that he walked 
along in silent meditation. His thoughts were these: "If this 
man is insane, I shall have the opportunity of studying a chap- 
ter in Psychological Medicine from a most interesting clinic. 
The great principle that Mental Disease depends solely upon 
cerebral conditions, has now become so thoroughly established 
that it is no longer questioned. Its full recognition, however, 
has been followed by such activity of observation and research, 
that the field of inquiry has been extended in every direction, 
and at the present time it may truly be said that new opinions, 
new forms of Insanity, and new remedies have been and are 
being multiplied at a rate which far outstrips the steady march 
of consolidated knowledge. As the field of inquiry extends, the 
crop of good results is more difficult to garner. 

"At the present time, Psychological Science is undergoing a 
most notable process of expansion, and there is no sign that it 
will ever again be 'cribbed, cabined, and confined' by dogmas. 



The Track in the Road. 75 

either legal or theological, nor any indication that its bounds 
will be circumscribed by any limits more narrow than man's 
powers to investigate the secrets of organization. 

"If 3 on the other hand he is rational, and really is what his 
appearance indicates, I shall have a most interesting compan- 
ion, one from whom I shall gather knowledge, and whom I 
shall most gladly entertain." 

His musings were interrupted as he raised his head and 
found himself at his own gate. "Here is our place" (he never 
called it my place) ; "walk in." 

The tramp obeyed with the simple remark : "Thanks." 



76 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK III. 

THE WANDERING JEW. 

Ghost Eliot was a bachelor. His establishment, unlike the 
usual bachelor's abode, was neat and tidy. His old maid-serv- 
ant (formerly a slave) was as neat as her master. Everything 
had been scrubbed and scoured during his absence, and every- 
thing put in its place. 

His library, more noted for its quaintness than for the num- 
ber of its volumes, first attracted the attention of the stranger. 
He was looking over some rare old books when supper was 
announced. 

At his own table the schoolmaster always invited strangers 
to ask a blessing. Bowing their heads, his guest said this sug- 
gestive grace: 

"Son of God — Christ! Forgive me and let me rest. Bless mine 
host and accept our thanks, for what we have here is of Thee." 

After the frugal meal, these two men, the one so alert, yet so 
reticent in his inquiries, the other so modest and unassuming, 
attempted, in the cool of the evening, a general conversation. 
It was slow work. The mind of the schoolmaster was not on 
general topics. His imagination was wrought up to the highest 
pitch concerning his guest. 

Undecided in his mind as to his being insane, and unwilling 
to suspect him of crime, he found it difficult to conceal his de- 
sire to know something of the past history of one who seemed 
to be enveloped in a cloud of mystery. 

The stranger, observing this anxiety on the part of his host, 
and surmising its cause, directed in a delicate way the conver- 
sation to himself. He commenced by saying: "The bath I 
took this afternoon on the road gave such relief to my feet that, 
with your permission, I will slip off my shoes and enjoy that 
complete rest which I am not often permitted, even tempo- 
rarily." 

"With all my heart," said the teacher; "and I will join you, 
for I seldom sit with my shoes on after the day's work is done." 



The Wandering Jew. 77 

It was now growing dark-, and the old maid-servant brought 
in a newly-trimmed lamp and placed it upon the table in the 
center of the room. 

It lighted the little apartment brilliantly. 

The schoolmaster placed his own shoes to one side and took 
up the stranger's. Instead, however, of placing them with his, 
he took a brush, and performing the duties of his self-appointed 
office of boot-black, soon had them shining and glossy. His 
surprise was again excited when he found a beautiful polish 
come upon the shoes with a few strokes of the brush and with- 
out blacking. 

He then took a seat by the light and commenced a critical 
survey, noting the inosculations with the greed of an Antiquary. 

The letters of the ancient alphabets became more visible as 
he examined more closely, and he spelled words in the Punic, 
Chaldaic, Phoenician, Hebrew and Greek languages. He saw 
line after line in hieroglyphics, of which he could make nothing. 
He translated the Greek and saw they were familiar texts from 
the Xew Testament. The Hebrew characters he could under- 
stand well enough to see they all made allusions to Jesus Christ 
as the Son of God. What surprised him as much as anything 
else was, that he could find neither stitch nor peg nor nail, save 
the seven in the heel forming the cross. 

He looked at his guest with an inquiring eye and said: "My 
friend, your shoes are a puzzle, an enigma. I have seen many 
queer products of the mechanic art. I have studied the hydro- 
static paradox and the magic square. I can understand how 
an ice-boat and a reaction water-wheel may travel faster than 
the wind or water which propels them, but these shoes, if they 
are a product of human mechanism, have obscured much of the 
cobbler's art. I find neither thread nor peg; neither seam nor 
awl-hole. I look in vain for something to hold the parts to- 
gether, and while I have never seen anything which appeared 
to need holding together more, it would seem that each part 
held its fellow pari by mutual attraction. The mechanic who 
made these shoes must know more of the art than the shoemaker 
of the present day. Indeed, here is evidence of esthetic art, 
extraordinary mechanism and classical scholarship. I would 

like to ho acquainted with the man who can do such work." 



78 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"To be acquainted with, the maker of these shoes," replied 
the traveler, "would scarcely be profitable, for he has laid aside 
the tools of his craft, is an outcast upon the world, forsaken of 
God and man." 

"You speak in riddles." 

"The shoemaker himself is a riddle." 

"Is there no means of solving the riddle?" 

"Yes, I have the key." 

"Then you can instruct me?" 

"If you desire it." 

"Nothing would please me better." 

"Listen, then, to a tale of sin and its consequences. 

"I was born a Jew, in the city of Jerusalem, one thousand 
nine hundred and eighteen years ago. My family was poor, my 
father being a common laborer. I was apprenticed to a shoe- 
maker at the age of seven. The ill-treatment I received at the 
hands of a brutish master, the lessons in dishonesty, and the 
hard fare of an apprentice warped my little intellect and stunted 
my body. I grew up to be a fair cobbler, but an accomplished 
rogue. I studied more to make a shoe look well than to do 
honest work. I became a favorite cutter and fitter to the snobs 
of the city, and increased the patronage of my master many 
fold. I began to feel my importance, and took a shop of my 
own. It was on the main thoroughfare of the town, and my 
fame as a maker of stylish shoes spread far and wide. At the 
age of thirty I had an established business and a fair trade. I 
decided to marry, and this step determined my fate. My wife 
proved anything but a helpmate. She was extravagant, pro- 
lific and a virago. In vain I made stylish shoes. In vain I 
hammered and stitched both day and night, burning the mid- 
night oil when I ought to have been asleep. In vain I remon- 
strated with her for wasting the fruits of my toil. In vain I 
attempted to reason her out of the violence of her temper. My 
house became a hell through improvidence and mismanagement. 

"I became morose and looked upon mine as a hard lot. Is- 
rael, besides being a civil polity, was a theocracy; she was not 
merely a nation, she was a Church. In Israel, religion was not, 
as with the peoples of pagan antiquity, a mere attribute or 



The Wandering Jew. 79 

function of the national life. The religion of the Jew was the 
essence and the glory of his life. 

"Worship was to him what progress is to the present gen- 
eration. The existence, the presence of One, Supreme, Living, 
Personal Being, who alone exists necessarily and of Himself, 
was the great conviction of the people of Israel. The Jew, like 
Job, would have no daysman come betwixt him and his God. 
God had been to him a deliverer, a lawgiver and a guide. Any 
denial of his God or his mode of worship was a personal insult 
not to be forgiven. He witnessed daily sacrifices for sin ; he 
witnessed the sacrifice of sacrifices which was offered on the 
Day of Atonement, and by which the 'nation of religion,' imper- 
sonated in its High Priest, solemnly laid its sins upon the sacri- 
ficial victim, and bore the blood of atonement into the Presence- 
chamber of God. 

"With this he was satisfied. 

"I was in the prime of life when Jesus Christ came, preach- 
ing a new doctrine. 

"He claimed to be King of the Jews, the Son of God, the 
Savior of mankind. He habitually associated with and preached 
to the poor and ignorant. He denounced our rituals, our sacri- 
fices, our feasts, and fasts. He preached repentance and per- 
sonal righteousness. He said, 

"'I am not of this world. I am from above.' 'I proceeded forth 
and came from God.' 

"He claimed to be the Son of God! This claim caused his 
arrest and trial for blasphemy. The Sanhedrim condemned 
II i in because He claimed Divinity. The members of the Court 
stated this before Pilate : 

" 'We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made 
Himself the Son of God.' 

"All this took place while I hammered at my last and stitched 
with my awl and thread. I had always been scrupulous in my 
religious observances, but my poverty and inability to rise oul 
of it prevented my taking any active pari in schismatic opinions 
or discussions. I beard a good deal of the strange teachings 

of JeSUS, hnt knowing him tO be the son of B carpenter, and 



80 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

hearing these reports only among the poor and ignorant, I re- 
garded him as a simple, harmless person, who had lost his wits, 
or a vainglorious braggart, who could do neither good nor harm. 
But when the Sanhedrim had pronounced sentence of death 
upon Him, and the day of execution was fixed, I felt my ran- 
cor rise against him. I said, 'If he had been earning an honest 
living, instead of leading the life of a vagabond and upsetting 
the minds of weak persons, he would now, in place of a pris- 
oner, be a respectable member of society; let him go, I have no 
sympathy for him.' The truth is, I was so hardened by toil 
and poverty that I felt truculent toward all who lived without 
labor. 

"On the day of the execution I was so pressed by my neces- 
sities that I could not think of losing the time to attend, yet, 
when the procession came along, I went to the door of my shop 
merely to see the crowd. It was a mob composed of all classes ; 
some enemies, some friends of Jesus, but mostly made up of 
idlers, vagabonds and thoughtless boys. The main spectacle 
was the condemned, who were compelled by law to carry their 
crosses. When Jesus came by He was weary and bent under 
His load. He asked permission to rest a moment upon the step 
of my door. I repulsed Him with acerbity, telling Him to 
go on — 'Go on, Jesus, to your deserts.' He looked upon me 
with a severe countenance and said: 'I go to rest, but thou 
shalt go on till I return.' 

"I went back to my work with a sneer on my lip, but the 
words, 'I go to rest, but thou shalt go on till I return,' kept 
ringing in my ears. I tried to think of something else and 
hammered furiously at my last, but the ominous sound con- 
tinued, first in the whole sentence, then in parts. Finally, it 
got down to the monosyllable, go ! and this was repeated so 
fast and in such a whirring monotone as to be positively 
painful. 

"I got up and walked about, and stuck my fingers in my 
ears, but it rang more violently, go-go-go-go-go-go-go-000000000 ! 
until I thought my ears would burst. 

"At last, without knowing what to do or where to go, I put 
on my hat and walked out. As I strode along, the dreadful 
noise weakened, and the faster I walked the more indistinct it 



The Wandering Jew. 81 

became; but stop for a moment, and it would return with in- 
creased tension, 'Go on, till I return, go-go-go-go !' And thus 
it has been from that day to this with few exceptions. I con- 
tinued to walk aimlessly, and scarcely knowing the direction I 
took until I found myself upon Calvary, where the Crucifixion 
was going on. I mingled with the crowd, spoke to many 
acquaintances, and jested with the enemies of Jesus, trying 
every means to get rid of the horrible din in my ears. 

"Crucifixion is, perhaps, the most cruel mode of executing 
the death penalty ever devised by man. It is slow torture, and 
death is the result of pain and exhaustion. After many hours 
the wretched victim dies without a struggle, thankful for the 
end. 

"On this memorable day, when the idle and thoughtless be- 
gan to stretch and yawn at the tedium of the torture, and the 
rancorous even began to surfeit with the misery they came to 
behold, when conversation waned, and the black mantle of 
Death began to hover over the scene, a wail from the tree on 
which Jesus hung — a wail heart-rending and despairing, un- 
earthly in its cadence of anguish and despondency, rent the air, 
and sent a thrill of sadness through the most callous soul : 

" 'Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani!' 

"I turned and saw the death agony, the finale of the passion 
of the Savior of mankind. 

"My eyes were suddenly opened to the heinousness of my 
crime, and I started upon a journey that has never ceased, a 
pilgrimage thai will end only with the second coming of Christ. 
I realized for the firsl time that a curse was upon me, and that 
my expiation was an endless pererration. Go on, go on, go-go- 
go! Bounded like thunder in my ears, and pierced my brain 
like electric shocks. Whenever I attempted to stop the omi- 
nous roar drove me forward. Over liill and dale, through 
foresl and fen, among civilized and savage nations I have 
roamed ceaselessly: praying for death, attempting suicide, en- 
listing in war, courting the perils of the sea and defying God 
thai Be mighl strike me dead. I studied the sciences of life 
and death, learned all the cures of disease, made a special study 
of Toxicology, and ventured Into the labyrinth of Esoteric 
Buddhism. I traversed the miasmatic jungles of India, slepl 

6 



82 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

in bogs, exposed myself to putrid emanations and noisome 
effluvia, entered the dens of wild beasts and poisonous serpents, 
lay in the path of Thugs, and prostrated myself before the Car 
of Juggernaut. 

"My sole object then, as now, was rest. Rest in peace, in 
death, in annihilation — anything for rest. That craving has 
never ceased, its fulfillment has never been realized. How to 
obtain this goal has been my daily thought for near two thou- 
sand years. The methods only have changed. Then I was 
rebellious, now I am humble. I felt that my rancor was just, 
and bottled it up to give it more strength. I roamed for a 
thousand years over every part of the habitable globe, cursing 
the day I was born, and never ceasing to revile the author of 
my misery. I felt that I had committed a crime — but that my 
punishment was out of proportion to my guilt. I beleaguered 
with human philosophy the eternal wisdom of God, set myself 
the task of rejudging the justice of Omnipotence. My rebel- 
lious spirit sustained me until the blackness of despair obscured 
my vision, and the ceaseless torment of bodily pain provoked 
repentance. Repentance was a new doctrine to the Jew, a new 
mode of expiating crime. It came to me with tears, remorse, 
and despair. I fell prostrate before the image of a Crucified 
Savior and begged in piteous moans for rest. I ceased from 
this moment to indulge the folly of self-justification — the van- 
ity of intellectual pride. I felt that my sentence was just, that 
by an act of my own free will I had forfeited the inheritance 
of my Maker — had sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. 
All this time I was an outcast from the society of men, a vaga- 
bond upon earth with the mark of Cain upon my brow. The 
food I received was as a bone thrown to a dog, accompanied 
with a ban. 

"The one exception to this endless and fruitless journey of 
despair and remorse may be found in the Chronicles of Car- 
tophilus — a bit of literature rare, and sacred to the memory of 
Isaac Lakedion, whose wanderings make record in the poly- 
chronicons of cloistered monks. 



The Wandering Jew. 83 

"Thus it is, saieth the Chronicles : 

"On the third day of the month Elul and of the Creation, 3839— 
which answereth to August 22, A. D. 70, I left Pa?stuin, before the 
stars of the morning were dimmed, and reached Pompeii on the night 
of that day. The sim was now buried in the waters of the Great 
Gulph, as I entered the eastern gate of Pompeii. A black and 
heavy cloud hung over the western horizon — the water of the Sarnus 
were much swelled — the Great Sea was more agitated than had 
been known for many years, and the numerous vessels in the south- 
ern and western harbors were with difficulty held to their moorings. 

''The night, however, though passed in safety, gave us dreadful 
presages, and was full of terrors to many. The multitude, neverthe- 
less, were keen as usual in the gratification of their darling pleasures ; 
and though nature scowled with angry threatenings, I found the 
streets filled with crowds in pursuit of gain, of vice, of folly and 
of voluptuous enjoyments — whilst a few were seen, as it were, creep- 
ing into the temples, and offering to the gods a feeble lip-service, or a 
hideous outcry, from excessive alarm. 

"On the morning of the fifth of Elul the sun rose with his usual 
lustre, the black and pregnant cloud had nearly vanished; the sea 
was greatly calmed; and the angry mountain was giving but an oc- 
casional moan — a much diminished volume of smoke and fire : — but, 
alas! all this was only the forebodement of an insidious and awful 
outbreak ! 

"Night came on, and with it an hour was dedicated to my 
Chronicles, in obedience to my long habit, as well as from the gloom 
that had nearly overcome me; for the condition of the mountain was 
now becoming very alarming, and our great desire was to hasten on 
our road that night, if possible, or by the early dawn of the morning. 

"Wearied became my eyelids, and unto my couch I repaired for 
rest, i ' suvio volente! 

"I need not recount the manner in which I became buried quite 
fifteen cubits beneath the ashy showers of Vesuvius, which ceased not 

entirely to pour down during several days; nor can I describe my 

agonies when the Incumbent weight Increased upon me. and as r 
became more and more conscious that life designed not to leave me; 
but that I was destined to exist onder a load <<\' unimaginable 
tortures — how long I could then in nowise conjecture! 
"Happily for me. ail this was preceded by a marvelous change of 

all that was corporeal in me. and with little, if any. note <>( linn : 
for the years I lay there were. ;is to time, hut a dreamy existence; 
and yet, in all other things, with the s.ime vivid Bight and COn- 

Bdousnese thai often belong to man during the brightest visions of the 
night : 



84 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"At first, all around me was black and palpable darkness — but soon, 
great was my wonder when a mild and comparative light, if such 
it might be called, slowly beamed in upon me, and more as if it 
found its source within me than anywhere without! — for all things, 
after a while, seemed to become parts of myself — attended, moreover, 
by such a preternatural increase of my vision that even Nature's 
minutest objects — their most intimate organization, and their very 
essences, were glaringly before me, and soon thereafter became to 
me, either odiously, or delightfully familiar, according to their very 
diverse natures ! 

"To my then ethereal and piercing vision, all nature around me 
teemed with life; and the astounding fact was revealed to me that 
nearly all matter, which, to the natural eye is so inert and lifeless, is 
perpetually quickening into animation and bursting into active exist- 
ences — or, sinking into death — there to assume other mutations, again 
springing into or sustaining life ! Here it was that I first learned to 
know that, in all creation, there exists a vast connected chain of be- 
ing — an infinite progressive series of animation — filling all things, 
and giving breath, yea thought — and hence, the power and duty of 
praise to Him who alone is the Fountain whence they spring, and 
whither they must all return — each at its own appointed time! 

"The years I had thus unconsciously passed, as to time, beneath 
those ashes, were often occupied by me in contemplating all those 
awakening things that then encompassed me — also in reminiscences 
of the hateful past, and in forebodings of the yet more odious and 
terrific future! These musings flitted through my mind, exciting it 
to the keenest curiosity — and then subduing it with wonder. At 
other times I found myself earnestly engaged in noting the habits and 
fashions of life among the infinitely various and small beings that 
moved and gamboled and died around me ! And, as I now remember, 
when Vesuvius was casting forth more than its wonted volume of 
fire and smoke, I perceived that the earth was everywhere penetrated 
with a most odious and pestiferous aura, charged with sulphurous and 
arsenical particles, and with other metallic poisons ! But great in- 
deed was my wonder on beholding that, when these noxious, though 
extremely attenuated effluvia, were piercing thoroughly the earth, ac- 
companied with sudden and tumultuous motions, far and wide, these 
were followed by a rush from the earth, into the air, of countless 
myriads of those inconceivably minute insects, then so hideously 
augmented to my vision, but which to man would continue unseen, 
were even an hundred million of them united into a single mass ! 
These little beings, nevertheless, were intensely venomous for their 
volume; and when breathed in by man or beast, have often proved 
the cause of many foul diseases — of plagues, and of many unknown 
maladies, to baffle the skill of every Hippocrates, and to prove so 
mortal to our species ! Those life-killing insects are often wafted 



The Wandering Jew. 85 

to great distances by sudden and resistless currents of air. — causing 
sickness, or death, even in the remotest regions, and ever in the ratio 
of the density of their numbers ; and in places, too, where Vesuvius, 
or .Etna, is yet utterly unknown !* 

"How I eventually escaped from my earthy stronghold, and emerged 
once more to hail the blessed light of heaven, and to inspire its 
balmy air, with a more refreshened spirit than when I entered 
Pompeii's walls, need not be told further than that some plunderers 
came and sedulously dug over the very spot beneath where I lay ; 
but having searched in vain, after removing much of the earth above 
me. they left my body almost visible ! As night approached, the 
moisture, and the rush of fresh and vital air into my lungs, so long 
a stranger to it. gave me an awakening sensation, and soon a con- 
sciousness of a returning power of locomotion! The blood now be- 
gan to course rapidly through my veins ; and suddenly arousing my- 
self, as with a convulsive struggle, I bounded upon my feet into 
the open air — where all around me were silence and the darkness 
of a moonless night ! 

'"My usual vision was instantly restored ; and early did I experience 
a longing for food ! Vesuvius, as usual, had a few small streams of 
burning lava down its sides ; and by this was given me the direction 
I would go ; so that, before the dawn of day, Cartaphilus was again 
among the living, and suitably clad, at the 'Otiosa Neapolis' — where, 
after nourishing the outer man during some days, he procured a small 
vessel, and hastened on to his beloved abode at Pa?stum. after an 
absence of just six years, less ten days! And here in Prestum. three 
days thereafter, I recorded this portion of my Chronicle. 

"But the story of the marvelous past is not yet quite told. Skipping 
over many years from the time of my entombment in the ashes of 
Pompeii, I return to the regular course of my fitful and eventful 
career, enacted with men, and measured by time which, in the 
presenl day, would be deemed a waste and a crime." 



♦Tin; mode rn (?) theory of the microbe origin of disease is here exposed, and 
many recent discoveries in medicine have proved to be the resurrected remains of 
ancient aruspicy. Verily, "there is nothing new under the sun." 



86 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

THE CRUSADES. 

"Footsore, dejected in spirit and without object in my ram- 
bles, one day on the dusty highways of Continental Europe I 
met a man of mean appearance, riding a mule and bearing a 
weighty crucifix. His head was bare, his feet naked, his meager 
body was wrapped in a coarse garment. His stature was small, 
his appearance contemptible; but his eyes were keen and lively, 
and he possessed that vehemence of speech which seldom fails 
to impart the persuasion of the soul. This man, who had for- 
saken his wife, and abandoned his military standard under the 
Counts of Boulogne, had returned from the Holy Land with 
his heart on fire, not so much from the memory of the hard- 
ships which he had himself undergone, as for the cruelties and 
tortures which he had seen inflicted on his fellow-Christians. 

"He halted me on the road and demanded to know my busi- 
ness. 

"I endeavored to evade his glance, and pass his searching 
eye; but he was too much in earnest to lose one opportunity of 
impressing the importance of his mission upon the lowliest of 
his fellows. I yielded to his persuasions and followed in his 
wake. 

"Peter the Hermit (for this was he) preached to innumerable 
crowds in the churches, the streets and the highways ; he entered 
with equal confidence the palace and the cottage, and the people 
were impetuously moved by his call to repentance and arms. 
When he painted the sufferings of the natives and pilgrims of 
Palestine, every heart was melted to compassion; every breast 
glowed with indignation when he challenged the warriors of the 
age to defend their brethren and rescue their Saviour. His 
vehemence carried all before him, none the less, perhaps, because 
he bade them remember that no sins were too heinous to be 
washed away by the waters of the Jordan, no evil habits too 
deadly to be condoned for the one good work, which should 
make them champions of the cross. Pope Urban the Second 
received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious design, prom- 
ised to support it in a general council, and encouraged him to 



The Crusades. 87 

proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land. Invigorated by 
the approbation of the pontiff, his zealous missionary traversed, 
with speed and success, the provinces of Italy and France. The 
most polished orator of Athens might have envied the success 
of his eloquence. This indefatigable teacher inspired the pas- 
sions which he felt, and Christendom expected with impatience 
the counsels and decrees of the supreme pontiff. 

"The Europe of that day was very different from the Europe 
of ours. It was in its Age of Eaith. 

"Recently converted, as all recent converts do, it made its be- 
lief a living rule of action. In our times there is not upon that 
continent a nation which, in its practical relations with others, 
carries out to their consequences its ostensible, its avowed ar- 
ticles of belief. Catholics, Protestants, Mohammedans, they of 
the Greek Communion, indiscriminately consort together under 
the expediences of the passing hour. Statesmanship has long 
since been dissevered from religion — a fact most portentous for 
future times. But it was not so in the Middle Ages. Men then 
believed their form of faith with the same clearness, the same 
intensity with which they believed their own existence or the 
actual presence of things upon which they cast their eyes. The 
doctrines of the Church were to them no mere inconsequential 
affair, but an absolute, an actual reality, a living and a fearful 
thing. It would have passed their comprehension if they could 
have been assured that a day would come when Christian 
Europe, by a breath, could remove from the holy places the 
scandal of an infidel intruder, but, upon the whole, would eon- 
it not worth her while to do so. How differently they 
acted. When by the preaching of Peter the Hermit and his 
collaborators, who had received a signal from Rome, a knowl- 

had come to their ears of the reproach that had befallen 

Jerusalem ami the Bufferings of the pilgrims, their plain but 

Lghtforward common sense taughl them al once what was 

the right remedy to apply, and forthwith they did apply it, 
and Christendom, precipitated headlong upon the Holy Land, 

was brought face to face \viih Mohammedanism. 

"The crusades have been condemned, ridiculed, and held ap 
as examples of fanaticism run mad. Historians, failing to com- 
prehend the efficient causes, and painting the Burface scenes 



88 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

only, have left the Holy Wars under a ban. An impulse so 
powerful as to combine nations in arms for the accomplishment 
of one purpose may not be classed with causes which operate to 
produce individual actions. The individual is actuated by his 
own will, and may or may not do at his discretion, but national 
movements are inaugurated under the direction of causes over 
which the individual has little control. It is true that the Her- 
mit, by his preaching, fanned the flame which was already 
aglow, and precipitated a half million of men, poorly prepared, 
upon a scheme which resulted in disaster to many individuals, 
but the final outcome of that scheme was to uphold and strengthen 
the Church of Christ. 

"In these wars I engaged with a relish, a zeal second only to 
that of Peter. I put on the badge of the cross, and headed the 
van. Throughout the weary marches, the sufferings, and the 
privations of the nine Holy Wars, I was a brave soldier, a 
valiant knight of the Cross. I am the only living witness of 
those eventful times, and if the crusades disappointed the ex- 
pectation of their promoters, they achieved some results, the 
benefits of which have been felt from that day to the present. 
They failed, indeed, to establish the permanent dominion of 
Latin Christendom, whether in New Rome or in Jerusalem; 
but they prolonged for nearly four centuries the life of the 
Eastern empire, and by so doing they arrested the tide of Ma- 
hometan conquests as effectually as it was arrested for Northern 
Europe by Charles Martel on the plain of Tours. They saved 
the Italian and perhaps even the Teutonic and the Scandina- 
vian lands from a tyranny which has blasted the fairest regions 
of the earth ; and if they added fuel to the flame of theological 
hatred between the Orthodox and the Latin churches, if they 
intensified the feelings of suspicion and dislike between the 
Eastern and the Western Christians, they yet opened the way 
for an interchange of thought and learning which had its result 
in the revival of letters, and in the religious reformation which 
followed that revival. The ulterior results of the crusades were 
the breaking up of the feudal system, the abolition of serfdom, 
the supremacy of a common law over the independent jurisdic- 
tion of chiefs who claimed the right of private wars ; and if for 
the time they led to deeds of iniquity which it would be mon- 



The Crusades. 89 

strous even to palliate, it must yet be admitted that in their 
influence on later ages the evil has been assuredly outweighed 
by the good. 

"This brief allusion to the crusades will enable you the bet- 
ter to understand what I am about to relate in regard to the 
shoes. 

"When the last soldier had been disbanded from the crusad- 
ing armies, and the streets of Jerusalem had been washed, and 
order somewhat restored, I found myself standing one day in 
the market-place, close by the site of the ancient Temple. The 
day was cloudy and the scene dreary. The few coster-men 
whose stalls were occasionally visited by an ancient crone, or a 
ragged child, seemed to take no interest in their trade. The 
leaden hue of dejection sat upon their features, and it appeared 
to be an effort for them to tell the price of their wares. As I 
contemplated their forlorn appearance, and ruminated upon 
the changed complexion of this once busy mart, the old grating 
hum of 'go, go, go on, go on till I return,' which had been par- 
tially drowned in the busy scenes of the crusades, began a fresh 
and invigorated strain, which warned me that my days of pil- 
grimage were not yet ended." 



90 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK V. 

THE CRAZY SHOEMAKER. 

"As I was about to obey the summons, and pay another in- 
stallment upon the wages of my sin, a little old man, hump- 
backed and blind of one eye, mounted a box and began, with 
wild gesticulations and vociferous speech, to call attention to a 
pair of sandals he held in his hands. His speech was so inco- 
herent, so disconnected, and withal so pathetic, that I stayed a 
moment to hear what he had to say. As no one paid him the 
slightest attention, and as he appeared none the less in earnest 
on that account, I ventured to ask a Mohammedan bystander 
who he was, and what he meant by disturbing the market-place 
in the manner he was doing. The reply was, 'He is a crazy 
shoemaker, living on Mount Calvary, and imagines he is in 
possession of the sandals worn by that deluded prophet, Jesus, 
the so-called Christ, who was crucified by order of Pilate for 
calling himself the Son of Glod, and in whose name the streets 
of this city have recently flowed knee-deep in human blood — 
blood of innocent babes and helpless women — in whose name 
more crime, more sin has been committed, more lives lost, more 
treasure wasted, more tears shed and more brains demented, 
than by the combined folly of man since superstition first 
erected an altar to ignorance and fear. He comes here every 
day at this hour, and goes through his present performance, 
after which he returns to his hut, and spends most of his time 
in repairing the footgear of the neighboring peasants. I am 
told that he is very ingenious at his trade, and that some of 
his work is a great puzzle to the shoemakers of the city. He 
is harmless, and the authorities, after exhausting their means 
to suppress him, have decided to interfere with him no more. 
]STo one pays the least attention to him. Even the boys have 
ceased to hoot him.' 

"Notwithstanding the apparent insanity of the man, I could 
perceive that he was in real earnest, and believed with all his 
soul that the message he was delivering not only had merit, 
but came to him from authority which made it his imperative 



The Crazy Shoemaker. 91 

duty to iterate, and reiterate, day by day, the monitions of his 
secret counsellor. He ceased his harangue, cast up his eyes, 
and with outstretched hands exclaimed in pathetic tones : 

'O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stouest 
them which are sent unto thee ; how often would I have gathered 
thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
her wings, and ye would not ! Behold your house is left unto you 
desolate.' 

"TVith this outburst of feeling, he descended from his perch 
and proceeded without another word to his hut. I followed 
closely, and by the time the old man had seated himself, I 
entered behind him. 

"This little old cobbler's den, situated on the very spot where 
the Crucifixion took place a thousand years before, was a ver- 
itable curiosity shop. The fixtures to the shoemaker's trade, 
as I knew them in former days, were not to be seen. Instead 
of the last, he used a kind of plastic mould, by which he fitted 
the shoe to the exact shape of the foot. In place of thread, he 
used cement, and his leather was all in scraps, prepared by a 
ponderous machine with knives and rollers so constructed that, 
when gauged by the mould, every part of the shoe, ready cut, 
ready hammered, and ready polished, dropped out to fit the 
very foot for which the machine was gauged. The hammer 
was supplemented by a press, the exact construction of which 
<r understood. It was in the shape of a cross, with hollow 
shaft, and a sliding door at the .juncture of the limbs. When a 
shoe was to be made or repaired, the parts all being placed in 
apposition in tin- mould ;iik1 properly cemented, it was removed 
to this press and the sliding door Bealed. The limbs acted 
levers, being benl down and fastened to the shaft. After a 
Length of time, according to the work done, either a shoe re- 
paired or newly made, the Levers were raised, the door opened 
;ind the shoe removed. It came out of the press ready lor the 

foot. On the walls of the -hop I noticed a greal variety of 

curious figures, of various sizes, which I afterward found to be 
patch-patterns; and they nil had significant meanings. 

"The little man eyed me ;i< I entered, and seemed to divine 
my business, for be began a1 once to talk about the buxm b he had 



92 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

exhibited in the market-place. He explained that, in digging 
the foundation for his shop, he had come upon the shoes, and 
the moment he touched them a thrill had pervaded his whole 
body, and he distinctly heard a voice whisper in his ear, 

'These are the shoes of the Son of God.' 

"From being a bigoted Jew he immediately became an humble 
Christian, and since that time he had made daily efforts to 
bring his fellowman to a knowledge of the truth, as it is in 
Jesus Christ. He preached a sermon too long to repeat, and 
at its close handed me the shoes for inspection. A more sudden 
transition from storm to calm never befell a tempest-tossed 
mariner on entering the vortex of a cyclone than came to me 
the very moment I took the shoes in my hands. The terrible 
roar ceased, and for the first time since that awful day, over a 
thousand years before, I was at peace with myself and all the 
world. My happiness was too great for expression ; it was the 
joy of a serene calm, such as I have heard described by the 
devotees of that Nepenthe draught which removes all sorrow 
for the day. I had no desire to move or speak. Belief had 
come so suddenly and so unexpectedly that both mental and 
physical powers yielded to the intoxication of hope renewed, 
and for the time being I had no care and no want. At length 
the little man spoke, and his voice roused me from my lethargy. 
I told him my story and besought him to let me remain in his 
house, where I could have the rest I so much desired. He 
heartily sympathized with me in my distress, and while my 
story appeared incredible even to him, he allowed me to join 
him in his work, and earn my bread for a while by honest toil. 
His health becoming poor, he soon ceased his visits to the 
market-place, and after I had learned to make and repair shoes 
by his method, the business of the shop gradually fell into my 
hands. For many months I lived in comparative peace with 
this good man, and I can truly say that the time spent in his 
society, in doing his work and in serving him in his illness, 
were the happiest moments of my life. The shoes were a 
never-failing resource against my infirmity, and but for the 
needs of my friend, and the exactions of business, I never 



The Crazy Shoemaker. 93 

would again have laid them down. I went to rest every night 
hugging them to my bosom, and kept them ever in reach by 
day. The mortal fear of losing them seized me at times, and 
deprived me of much happiness. I had learned to worship 
Jesus through these shoes truly and thankfully, but it was a 
selfish homage, and in the end I was repaid in gall and worm- 
wood. My friend and benefactor became weaker and more 
feeble day by day, and as his bodily powers failed, his mind 
gradually waned, until he was little more than a child. At 
last he died, and the tears from a surcharged fountain welled 
to the brim, but refused to flow. I consigned his dust to the 
earth, his mother, and sat down in the ashes. My grief was 
genuine; I was cut off from mankind again, and I envied the 
state of my friend. 

"After his death, the original bidding which had driven me 
forth for so many years came as a fiat, an ultimatum, to menace 
the mystic power of the shoes. It would loom up in the dark- 
ness like a giant specter, and mock the spirit of the talisman. 
It assumed the shape and manner of the unclean spirit and 
defied the power of the good. It became the Ahriman of Per- 
sian, the Devil of Christian theology. It hovered around the 
little shop by day, and haunted my dreams at night. It set 
up a war with the shoes, and chose my weary brain for its 
battleground. It cast me back into the 'Slough of Despond/ 
from which I had recently emerged, and blinded my faith with 
the dusky film of doubt. I became restless again; temptation 
seized upon my spirit, and I began once more i<> consult my 
own resources. The idea of a compromise at first whimsical 
and faint) al length rooted itself in my mind. I losl sight of 
the facl that, \\'o man can serve two masters/ and in my desire 
for more, I lost whal peace I had. 1 would obey the demon, 
but shield myself with the shoes. This <lf *<-i - i « » r i 0OSl mo ;ill the 
reel I had gained — sent mo forth once more ;i- ,i tramp. 

"I bad learned the mysteries of the now arl of shoemaking, 
from my late friend and master, and to add Lnsull to injury, 
with ;m ad of blasphemous Ingenuity, 1 determined to fit the 
sacred Bandals so my own graceless feet. This proved a greater 
task than I anticipated. First, I had to take them in pieces, 



94 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

then add such parts as were required to make them fit, without 
losing or altering any part of the original. Every effort, not- 
withstanding the aid of the mould and cutting machine, failed. 
I tried every conceivable combination, and would often succeed, 
save one little scrap. This scrap was invariably a portion of 
the sandal, and I dared not alter it, for fear of destroying its 
virtues. I labored faithfully, with a patience and skill worthy 
of a better cause. I was encouraged by the demon in this sacri- 
legious work, and promised exemption from my woes. I paid 
homage to the shade of Mephistopheles, that child of Darkness 
and emissary of the primeval Nothing, who stands in his spirit- 
ual deformity at once potent, dangerous and contemptible. To 
this cold, scoffing, relentless fiend, I paid my vows. 

"I believed if I could get the combination I would be safe. 
The last mystery of the shoemaker's art was to be solved, and 
this fallen archangel — this Devil, not of superstition, but of 
knowledge, could solve it. To his natural, indelible deformity 
of wickedness, to his combination of perfect understanding with 
perfect selfishness, of logical life with Moral death I erected an 
altar, and here burned the incense of my intellectual offering. 

"The sacrifice was acceptable. 

"On the wall of the shop, among the curious figures mentioned 
before as patch-patterns, the problem was solved. My eyes were 
ravished even as the eyes of Holofernes were ravished by the 
sandals of Judith. Yea, the fauchion entered my neck — not of 
steel, as in Holofernes' case, but of remorse, as with Adam after 
eating the forbidden fruit. It was an easy matter now to finish 
the work. The mould, the cutting machine, the patch-patterns, 
the press all worked in unison, and in a few days the shoes came 
forth as you now behold them. 

"It was a joyful day in Pandemonium when the work was 
finished. The fires of Gehenna broke out afresh and burned 
with a lurid, sulphury flame; the mountains quaked, and the 
heavens became dark, as on the day of the Crucifixion. The lit- 
tle shop trembled to its foundation, the press folded its arms, 
and the mould and cutting machine mouldered away to dust. 
The patch-patterns were scattered to the winds, and the demon 
danced a horrible jig to the music of 'go, go, go on till I return !' 



The Crazy Shoemaker. 95 

I could stand it no longer. I put the shoes on my feet and 
walked away in the darkness and tumult. I have done no more 
work, I have had no other home. I am without a friend in the 
world." 

The schoolmaster went to bed that night firmly convinced 
that he had a crazy man for his guest. 



96 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

FREEDOM AND NECESSITY. 

Me. Eliot was an early riser ; he was also in need of a bath. 
The story told by his guest the night before was of such absorb- 
ing interest and consumed so much time, that, at its close, both 
felt the necessity of immediate retirement. 

After the schoolmaster made up his mind that he was enter- 
taining a harmless lunatic, he gave thanks to the man who 
invented sleep, and quietly committed himself to the god of 
repose. His rest was unbroken and he arose with the lark 
completely refreshed. His first thought was the well, his bucket 
and sponge. If cranky on any subject, it was that of personal 
cleanliness. He often sponged his whole body over, three times 
a day in summer, and after these excesses, I have frequently 
heard him say his skin felt as if it was too short for him. On 
this particular morning he enjoyed to its full fruition the lux- 
ury of which he had been deprived so long. He felt better after 
it was over and concluded he was more "godly" if not more 
"Christian." After the first salutation of his guest, he remem- 
bered an expression in the narrative which forms the ground- 
work of this chapter, and while he regarded the man as being a 
little tete-exaltee, he was anxious to know if his reasoning powers 
were equal to his descriptive. 

Referring to the graphic memoir of the night before, and 
quoting from the Book, he said to his companion : 

" 'Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good,' and, 'Be ready 
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason 
of the hope that is in 3'ou.' 

"Paul gave good advice to the Thessalonians when he told 
them to prove all things, and Peter was certainly inculcating 
good manners when he encouraged all to be ready with an an- 
swer. You state in your memoir that 'The individual is actu- 
ated by his own will, and may or may not do at his discretion,' 
and making a personal matter of it, you said: 'I felt that my 
sentence was just, that by an act of my own free will, I had for- 



Freedom and Necessity. 97 

feited the inheritance of my Maker.' Certainly, you mean to be 
honest, and I admire the manly spirit of assuming the responsi- 
bility of one's own acts, but under the ruling of the Apostle, 
whose authority we will not question, it seems to me that you 
have arrived at conclusions upon which a full investigation of 
facts may throw more or less doubt." 

"Do you mean to intimate," said the guest, "that a man is not 
free to do or not to do — to act according to the dictates of his 
own will; in other words, do you question man's freedom and 
doubt his responsibility?" 

Host. — I only mean to follow the injunction of Paul to 
"prove all things." 

Guest. — Some things neither require proof, nor are they sus- 
ceptible of demonstration. The Apostle surely did not include 
self-evident truths when he said "prove all things." 

Host. — It is a dangerous thing to deal with axioms ; the seven 
wise men of Greece did not venture to produce more than one 
apiece. 

Guest. — Moral freedom in man, though not a necessary truth, 
as an established principle is universally received, and in that 
sense becomes axiomatic. 

Host. — If not a necessary truth there may be some doubt of 
its being a truth at all, and in that case it behooves us to fol- 
low the injunction of the Apostle. 

Quest. — It is not a necessary truth that the sun will rise 
to-morrow, and according to your philosophy it would become 
lie to prove that it will rise before accepting it as a truth. 

Host. — We accept it as a truth thai the sun will rise to- 
morrow, because in our experience it baa always risen, and we 
have no cause to believe it will cease to rise, therefore, we are 
not justified in questioning the fad of its rising, and need no 
proof of that fact. 

Guest. For the Bame reason we accepl ii aa ;i truth thai man 
i- free to ad as he pleases. We have always seen him ad ;i- it 
he was free, and having no cause to believe he will cease to ex- 
ercise lii- freedom, we are not justified in questioning Lt, and 

need nn pmnf of itfi I flit ||. 

Host. To pii ;i stubborn fad againsl an abstraction is hardly 

7 



98 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

a legitimate mode of reasoning by analogy. The rising or non- 
rising of the sun cannot be a question of interest to man, for its 
rising is taken for granted, and even to question it would be con- 
sidered Quixotic, but this question of moral freedom is one open 
to much discussion, and the discussion is legitimate as bearing 
upon man's happiness here, and the exercise of a rational faith 
in regard to his hereafter. 

Guest. — If facts and abstract ideas run counter to one an- 
other, there must be something weak in the abstraction, as all 
truths blend harmoniously, and where we fail to recognize them, 
it may be set down as our misfortune. 

This last sally put the schoolmaster upon his mettle, for he 
prided himself upon the fortress of his noncommittal dialecti- 
cism; and, peering through the shade of lunacy which his im- 
agination had cast upon his friend the night before, he addressed 
him as he would the most subtle and refined casuist. 

In his daily lectures to his class he made elaborate argu- 
ments from the data given, but he never allowed himself to 
deliver a verdict; leaving that rather to the judgment of his 
students. In this manner he approached the vexed question of 
free will in man, and braced himself for the following exploita- 
tion: 

"The careful student of Nature," said he, "cannot have failed 
to observe that all creatures endowed with life are possessed of 
many attributes in common; in fact, the distinctive marks be- 
tween man and the lower animals are much fewer than we might 
at first suppose; and, if brought to a crucial test, the dividing 
line would be so narrowed as to merge almost insensibly one into 
the other. Yet there is a difference so great, a chasm so broad, 
that the theory of man's descent has failed to bridge the gap, and 
the intellect of a Darwin, a Spencer, a Helmholtz and even the 
marvelously painstaking studies of a Haeckel, have all con- 
fessed to a 'missing link' in the chain of cause and effect, which 
shall attempt to bind man to a common origin with the brute. 

"Whence this line so narrow, yet so impassable ? 

"To answer this question is the easiest of all easy matters, 
but to bring the minds of others in accord — to convince — re- 
quires proof, illustration, argument. 



Freedom and Necessity. 99 

"In dealing with the Problem of Human Life, philosophers 
have uniformly followed a line of investigation calculated to 
baffle any inquiry where truth is the object to be gained. 

"They have studied man only in his manhood. 

"With his faculties fully developed and his body mature, the 
task of accounting for the varied phenomena presented in the 
course of one individual career is so Herculean in its inception, 
so fraught with perplexities and difficulties in its execution, 
that the keenest scrutiny of the most painstaking observer is 
eluded, and the protean forms of real and apparent traits mys- 
tify, and leave the investigator in doubt as to what kind of a 
subject he has to treat. To get a clear conception of what man 
really is would seem to be a priceless boon, as so large a share of 
human conduct is influenced by what we think of ourselves and 
our fellows. Efforts, from the earliest dawn of history, have 
been and are still being made in this direction, yet we seem to 
be as far from the solution as ever. Whence the trouble? How 
is it that the human mind of all creation is the least understood ? 
Why do philosophers stand aghast at the results of their own 
investigations? Is reason unreliable here and reliable in all 
things else? Nay, unperverted and supported by facts, it can 
never lead to error. It may conflict with all the senses, desires, 
appetites and passions, yet it is the beacon light which illumi- 
nates the path of life, and dispels uncertainty and doubt. It is 
the image of God in which man was made, and when we lay 
aside our reason we deny God. 

"To reason, then, we appeal, for this is an invocation to the 
God who made as. Bui let us make no mistake. While reason 
is our only reliable guide, there are circumstances in which it 
may be the direct menu- of leading to error; for instance, rea- 
soning correctly from false premises musl inevitably lead to 
false conclusions. How important then it i- t<> set out wiih cor- 
reet premises! 

"With this view let as approach this moot-point, untram- 
meled by hope or fear. Facts, a- they arc known to most people 
and ean he ascertained by all, -hall he the groundwork. If the 
premises be correcl and 'la- reasoning logical, the conclusions 
musl be true. 



100 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"We perceive the brute creation endowed with all the physical 
attributes of men. They hunger, thirst, tire, sleep, eat and 
drink; have like passions, as fear, love, hatred, revenge, filial 
and parental affection, and memory. The special senses are 
more acute, as seeing, hearing and smelling, but have they the 
power of abstract thought? Can we claim for the horse an 
intellect, or the elephant a moral sense? However closely some 
automatic actions of animals may simulate the actions of men, 
and appear to be incited by previously arranged design, ideas, 
or reflex perception of objects after the original perception or 
impression has been felt by the mind, cannot be reasonably 
claimed for the brute. In this sense we speak of intellect, and 
right here comes in the distinguishing characteristic of man; 
first, understanding, by which he thinks, reasons and profits by 
experience, and then all the aggregated qualities which make 
such an impassable gulf between him and the brute, such as 
Morality, Spirituality, Reverence, Worship, etc. Shall we look 
upon all these higher qualities as mere concomitants, or shall 
we view them in the relation of cause and effect ? If concomi- 
tant merely in distinguishment of man, there can be no good 
reason why idiots should not be endowed with those other higher 
qualities which separate man from the brute. Is such the case ? 
Can he perceive the beauties of love, charity or benevolence? 
Is he anywise more human than the brute, except in form ? If 
this view be correct, should he be deprived of moral sense be- 
cause he has not the power to think? As well might we say, 
because a man is deaf, he shall be blind also. Seeing and hear- 
ing are concomitant qualities, neither one depending on the 
other for existence, but we never see any evidence of moral 
sense without some power of abstract thought; then are we 
irresistibly led to conclude that the moral sense is dependent for 
its existence upon the intellect. And so with all the other 
higher qualities which distinguish man from the brute. 

"These qualities not being manifest in proportion to the 
greatness of the intellect need not militate against the sequence 
of cause and effect, but, forever being accompanied by the power 
of abstract thought, it follows that the one is the cause of the 
other, as much as it follows that the substance is the cause of 



Freedom and Necessity. 101 

the shadow. An object may make a large or small shadow, 
by virtue of its relation to light without in anywise increasing 
or diminishing its own size, but if the object be removed alto- 
gether, the shadow will disappear with it ; so, when you deprive 
any creature of intellect, these attachments or dependencies — 
these intercurrent qualifications — so blindly relied upon for our 
guidance, will vanish, as the shadow vanishes upon the removal 
of the object. 

"Taking these fundamental principles for the basis of this 
argument, it remains to be seen how, and by what means these 
distinguishing characteristics should be studied, in order to 
arrive at the truth. By comparison and illustration Ave often 
add force to argument, and bring minds in accord by citation 
of facts, which, left to ponder over dogmatic assertion, might 
forever remain at variance. In this connection, the historical 
facts of the Spanish invasion of Peru afford a striking illus- 
tration of the position taken. 

"When Pizarro sailed for the New World in 1532, he took 
with him some cavalry soldiers. The Peruvians had never seen 
a horse, and judging from appearances, or reasoning from im- 
pressions received through the sense of vision, came to the erro- 
neous conclusion that the mounted soldier and his horse consti- 
tuted one individual — a sort of multiple centaur, or eolipilic 
dragon — a mistake so fatal that by availing themselves of it, 
the Spaniards, with less than 180 men, subjugated an empire, 
not of barbarians, but an empire of men far advanced in civ- 
ilization. Peru was then the Sirius of native American splen- 
dor. Their monuments show what they were. One of their 
roads was 1,500 miles long and about forty feet broad, and of 
solid masonry over the marshes. Agriculture had attained to 
such perfect ion that the mountain sides were terraced, and irri- 
gated by gigantic canals and aqueducts, on a grander scale than 
thai of Egypt ; and so great was their industry thai the Peru- 
vians had gardens and orchards above the clouds; and on ranges 
-till higher flocks of Llamas, in regions bordering on the limits 
of perpetual snow. In the center of this magni£cen1 realm, 
their pom ill", or high priest, lived in a style of regal splendor 
unknown to the monarchies of Europe. 



102 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"There were enough more of the Peruvians to have walked 
up in a body, without arms, and choked each Spaniard to death 
on the spot. How, then, do we account for this wholesale 
slaughter and subjugation of a nation by a mere handful of an 
enemy in no wise their superiors physically? 

"Another example, leading to the same disastrous result, 
occurring in our own time, in our own State, from totally 
different causes, involving the same psychological principles, 
and requiring the same reasoning for its solution. I quote 
from the New York Herald of January 3, 1883 : 

" 'WHAT FRIGHT CAN DO. 

" 'Our special dispatch from Raleigh tells of an accident by which 
eighteen men lost their lives, all because of a groundless fright. 
They saw a little water in the bottom of a boat, imagined they were 
sinking, and then huddled together in such a manner as would have 
compelled the soundest boat of similar construction to go down. 
Fright is the greatest danger to which human nature ever is sub- 
jected.' 

"In both these examples, the action or conduct of men — in 
the one case, of a whole nation, in the other, of a party crossing 
a river — was the effect of causes operating through sense im- 
pressions conveyed to the nerve centers ; and, in the case of the 
Peruvians, leading to a chain of reasoning, logical enough in 
itself, but in the boating party producing automatic or reflex 
actions in no way connected with the understanding. The 
reasoning faculties of the drowned men played no part in the 
tragedy. The reasoning powers of the Peruvians were active, 
vigorous and logical. Fright was not the danger to which they 
were subjected. They had not only never seen a horse, but they 
had never seen nor heard the discharge of a firearm. They 
imagined the Spaniards to be a superior race, closely allied to 
the gods. Their intuitive perceptions misleading, no amount of 
right reasoning could bridge the gap, and the fatal mistake of 
reasoning from false premises led to their destruction, the 
same as fright or any other influence acting independently of 
the intellect. 



Freedom and Necessity. 103 

"Josephus tells a sad story of moral debasement in a wealthy 
and beautiful Roman lady from these same influences, as it 
were, reasoning from false facts. Xo man will be hardy enough 
to claim that the Peruvians purposely threw away their lives 
and their Country; no one will accuse the boating party of com- 
mitting suicide deliberately, by sinking their boat ; hardly any 
will say, after reading the story, that Paulina lost her virtue 
through moral turpitude. How, theu, do we account for these 
occurrences ? The pertinent question is, could they help it ? 
Can men help what they do now? Follow the argument and 
decide for vourself." 



104 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

CHAPTEK VII. 

FREEDOM AND NECESSITY— Continued. 

"My dear friend," said the traveler, "I already perceive the 
drift of your discourse. I labored in that vineyard for many 
dreary, unhappy years. The fruit I raised was Dead Sea 
fruit. The wine press of intellectual pride can only yield a 
lifeless and insipid juice. It yields not the wine that maketh 
glad the heart of man." 

"Our purpose," replied the teacher, "is to reason logically 
from known facts, and 'while the premises stand firm, it is 
impossible to shape the conclusion'; therefore, to him who 
would see the end without consulting the means, the problem 
will remain unsolved. No pet theory is arraigned here upon 
trial. No force of the advocate will be expended upon a false 
issue; no cross-examination of the witness to confuse the jury. 
This inquiry does not seek to discover the origin of man upon 
the earth. Opinionated conceptions and imaginary proposi- 
tions, together with that mode of reasoning which deduces new 
or unknown propositions from previous propositions which are 
known or evident, will be rigidly excluded. Whether man 
is an evolution in a natural way from a speck of protoplasm, or 
whether he is a metamorphosed ape, or a product of direct 
manipulation from the hands of his Maker, will not be dis- 
cussed. The analysis will be from facts, patent and demon- 
strable, and we shall endeavor to express our thoughts in intel- 
ligible language, and maintain that syllogistic form of reason- 
ing which amounts to demonstration. 

"First of all, then, man finds himself here, a substantial 
reality, confronted with himself. How he first got here no 
one knows, and what he really is has been a stumbling block 
from the remotest ages. How he gets here now is well known, 
and his real status in the world ought to be known. His begin- 
ning is very small; a speck of organic matter endowed with 
that mysterious principle — life. Chemical analysis has divided 
it into elements and found nothing but matter. Chemical anal- 
ysis can find nothing more in man. Life is a free gift to every 
individual on earth, and what we know of it is absolutely noth- 



Freedom and Necessity. 105 

ing, except that we find it in certain combinations of matter. 
Under circumstances favorable to man's reproduction, this vital 
force, in company with chemical combinations, keeps the world 
populated. Under adverse circumstances, myriads upon my- 
riads perish every hour without any attempt to grow. Nur- 
tured in his mother's womb, the preordained individual grows, 
like anything else grows, by natural laws; and, at the time of 
maturity, comes into the world and breathes, and is a live baby, 
This is all we know about it, and this is enough for us to know. 
Let us study this baby — this future man — and see what it is. 

"Whoever has observed a new-born babe has seen a little bag 
of flesh and bones, acted upon by external influences and within 
itself absolutely helpless. Its heart beats and its lungs take in 
and throw out air. Its actions are all involuntary. Its coun- 
tenance is a blank, and it is many weeks before it can even look 
at you. It comes into the world without its knowledge or con- 
sent, and is what it is from sheer necessity, so far as it is con- 
cerned. One comes in a hovel, another in a palace ; one is born 
a king, another a slave; one black, another white; one male, 
another female; one blind, another deaf and dumb; one is born 
a genius, another an idiot ; one is born a Mohammedan, another 
a Christian; one a pagan, another a Jew. And thus it is, dis- 
criminations are made before birth in which the individual has 
no choice, and which man in his maturity cannot circumvent. 
The baby is an effect of causes outside of and beyond itself, 
and as no effect 1ms the power to change or modify the cause 
or causes which produced it, so the human infant is what it is, 
and has no power within itself to be anything else. The most 
uncompromising stickler for free will and responsibility in man 
will never so far abuse his reason as to asserl thai a new-horn 
l>a l»i- with its firsl breath is responsible for its own existence, 
or has the power to be otherwise than jusl what it lb, The 
Hottentot, born under the scorching sun of Central Africa, or 

the Eskimo bral Of the frozen North, Can neither, within them- 
selves, change their relative positions; the one becoming beir 
to the throne of China, or the other a pel of King Edward. 
Napoleon Bonaparte was virtually a cavalry soldier in the Cor- 
sican Revolution before bis birth. His mother carried him 
about in the saddle, following the fortunes of her soldier bus- 



106 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

band, and only went home when the inevitable decrees of Na- 
ture forced her to her bed. Bonaparte was born a soldier, as 
much so as a negro is born black; and he had no more to do 
with it than the African has to do with his birth. Milton, 
Shakespeare, Burns, and Byron came into the world with the 
seeds of poesy deeply implanted in their souls, and had no more 
to do with the quality of their brains than they had to do with 
the color of their skins. Color, sex, time and place of birth, 
quality of brain, vital force, mental and physical peculiarities, 
are free gifts to every individual, like life, and whether we 
are thankful, or feel as if we are slighted, does not alter the 
case. The born slave may have the seeds of freedom so deeply 
rooted in his nature that in after life he may rebel against 
his condition, but that does not alter his position as an infant. 
The illegitimate child may forever feel an inward twinge on 
account of his birth, but the fact is unalterable. These propo- 
sitions seem to be intuitive, and while they are not susceptible 
of demonstration, it is to be doubted whether any sane person 
will gainsay them. Back, then, to the infant with its first 
inspiration of air. Let it be a Jew or Gentile, male or female, 
of whatever nationality, it starts in the world from causes of 
which it is the effect. These causes have operated to produce 
this particular babe and no other. It is endowed with qualities 
peculiar to itself, and surrounded by influences more or less 
different from that of any other child. These influences begin 
to operate from the moment of its birth, and act as causes to 
shape the destiny of the future man. Spreading with each 
day, and widening with every year of life, the branching out 
of these material and psychical influences operates in an un- 
broken chain of cause and effect to produce men as they now 
are; and, as the circle widens and the mazes become more puz- 
zling, the human mind is lost in the entangled web, and having 
no clue to the windings of the labyrinth, we hastily and with- 
out reason affirm that man is free. To untangle this web is 
the task now before us. It may appear presumptuous in a 
country pedagogue to attack a fortress which has withstood the 
assaults of the most powerful intellectual batteries which the 
world has produced, but if you are bold enough to think for 
yourself, and your brain is healthy enough to digest a hearty 



Freedom and Necessity. 107 

meal, you will find food here for reflection, and you will honor 
God and humanity by the exercise of those faculties which the 
All-Father has so freely bestowed. 

"To place ourselves in the position of the infant being impos- 
sible, we can only judge of its feelings by the effect of its sur- 
rounding influences and the stimulus of the forces necessary to 
continue its life. The sudden transition from pre-natal to post- 
natal life is, perhaps, the greatest shock to which the human 
frame ever is subjected. With the first breath the heart as- 
sumes new duties, the circulation of the blood seeks new chan- 
nels, and the sudden cry is an indication of the profound im- 
pression made upon the nerve centers by the great physiological 
change it has undergone. But this is Nature's method, and 
nature is always equal to her work. The new state of things 
works harmoniously, and perhaps the first urgent sensation the 
child ever feels is that of hunger. It is hungry because its 
stomach is empty, and its supply of nutrition must henceforth 
come from external sources. Up to now it had been nourished 
by the blood of its mother ; after now it must eat and drink for 
itself, and make its own blood. 

"Dip your hand into cold water and suddenly flirt it on the 
child's face or body, and it will jump and gasp. This jump 
is entirely involuntary, and is caused by what is termed reflex 
action of the nervous system. It is common to all animals, 
and follows man through his whole life. All the actions of the 
child for weeks and months are reflex, and most of the actions 
of men come under the same head, as will be shown further on. 
At birth, it is doubtful whether any of the special senses are 
capable of receiving impressions save that of touch. Hearing, 
seeing, smelling and even taste are developed by degrees, for 
the infant will stick anything placed in its mouth, and swallow 
poison as readily as food. The development of these sense- ie 
a matter of growth, like other functions, and takes place earlier 
in some children than others. 

"Along with physical development conic those psychological 
changes, following each other in rapid succession— like life. like 

death — many of tlioin evanescent, BOme Longer lived, and all 

making up the sum total of human life. Here La the beginning 

of those complications which grow with the growth of the 



108 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

child, and entangle themselves in such a network of cause and 
effect, that they blind the understanding, and invoke the aid 
of the passions to solve the great enigma of life. When we 
look upon man as a growth, an unfolding of a never-ending 
series of cause and effect, we shall see him as he is — a necessary 
consequence of inborn, gratuitous and fundamental elements, 
modified by his individual surroundings. 

"The first awakening of the intellectual faculties is an in- 
definite point in the evolution of man, and cannot be stated by 
rule. ]NTo one knows when the first gleam of reason flits across 
the inexperienced brain of the child. Like the budding of a 
tree, or the unfolding of a flower, it comes in time, and is has- 
tened or retarded by the conditions of life and surroundings 
of the individual. Up to five years of age the world is a pano- 
rama of ever-changing views, and this period is one continuous 
scene of bewilderment. Having no experience, it can have no 
knowledge, and being without instinct, it is more helpless than 
the brute. How? Why? What? is ever upon its lips, and 
the interminable questionings of a young child at once betoken 
its ignorance and its eagerness for knowledge. Incapable yet 
of performing those higher functions of thought, the young 
brain is beset with strange and weird fancies, grotesque and 
shapeless images, crowded pellmell into one chaotic mass of 
wonder — the legitimate effect of novelty upon ignorance. 

"Who is it that does not remember the futile efforts of his 
own immature reason to arrange and bring into proper adjust- 
ment the multitude of impressions received through external 
sources? Who that is able now to harmonize and reconcile the 
workings of that least of all understood organs — the brain ! 
Lifetime imprints are indelibly stamped upon the memory of 
every one during this period of mental growth, and, in after 
life, we look back with astonishment and wonder at our childish 
fancies. 

"The wonder ceases if we look at the naked fact and remem- 
ber that something cannot come from nothing — that we must 
have something to think with before we can think. Probably 
no greater error ever seized hold on the helpless ignorance of 
childhood than my own satisfaction when I discovered the 
cause of rumbling thunder. It would be ludicrous and incred- 



Freedom and Necessity. 109 

ible, if my experience was not confirmed by hundreds of brighter 
minds than my own. From two outside impressions, one 
through sight and the other hearing, I decided that rumbling 
thunder was caused by rotten apples rolling over each other on 
a floor in the sky. From that day to this, I never hear low, 
muttering thunder in the rear of a summer shower, but I think 
of rotten apples. It occurred in this way, and is among my 
earliest recollections : 

"On a sultry afternoon, in the latter part of summer, one of 
those typical thunderclouds loomed up in the west, and rolling 
and rumbling like a huge, misshapen monster, it soon enveloped 
the whole heavens in its mantle of darkness ; and, after dally- 
ing with the fears of childish ignorance and creating a flutter 
in the domestic household, it rolled away in the distance, grum- 
bling and growling like a disappointed fiend. Being naturally 
disposed toward the marvelous, such sportings of the elements 
had a powerful effect upon my imagination, and the most vul- 
nerable point of attack had been fear. Dreading to see more 
than to hear the breaking in of the storm, I shrank away and 
hid in the garret. Some apples had been stored there, and my 
feeble efforts at reasoning, with my limited means to reason 
from, which, all told, amounted to the two impressions — sight 
of the half-decayed apples lying on the floor, and hearing the 
distant peals of thunder as the cloud went away — led to the 
conclusion above stated; false though it be, yet the logical 
sequence of the premises taken, and the power of the instru- 
ment or medium of thought. Could it have been otherwise? 
( 'an I get rid of that impression to-day by an effort of the will? 
Why docs this phantom, this childish fancy, haunt the mind's 
eye whenever I hear muttering thunder? I know now that 
there are no apple- in the sky, no floor for them to roll upon. 
I may have no theory as to the cause of thunder. My reason- 
ing faculties, having gained strength, may remain in abeyance 

and wait, may ho open to conviction, tolerant, patient, ami 

satisfied never to know the cause of thunder. Then it was dif- 
ferent. Nothing would satisfy me bu1 an explanation. Rot- 
ten apples would explain it. and now, even now in my maturity, 
thifi picture, which is a mere -tain upon the mental index, defies 

time, defies reason; obtrudes itself on every occasion, and wick- 



110 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

edly asserts that rotten apples is the cause of thunder. An- 
other impression, no less enduring, came from sight alone. 
The old family Bible had a picture of Satan chained to a ring 
in the floor. Despite of reason, age and experience, whenever 
I think of this 'auld Hangie,' his forked tail, cloven hoof, and 
dragon's head invariably present themselves. This picture is 
another indelible stain that nothing can wash away. There is 
no mystery here. The intellect of man has solved the problem. 

"When we remember that man, in the scale of creation, 
stands highest because of this intellect; and when we look into 
the sacred books and find that the whole Godhead was called 
into requisition when his creation was first contemplated, we 
need not marvel at his capabilities. And when we find him 
investigating himself with an eye single to the discovery of 
truth, and making sacrifices even of life to gain knowledge, we 
honor the Maker by giving honor to the image. And when we 
study this image with the power which God has given us, unin- 
fluenced by the gaudy trappings by which it is surrounded, we 
approach the Throne, and see God through the intellect of man. 

"This mystery is solved by the laws which place mind over 
matter. Fancy with her painted wings may flit before the 
steady gaze of reason, but she can neither dazzle nor mislead. 
The registering power of mind, with the spectral gleam of 
memory, fills the book of life and frees the imagination. Ro- 
manticism in religious speculations will pale in the glare of 
scientific investigation, and man will, at last, be freed from 
fear. The possibilities of intellectual achievements are scarcely 
dreamed of by the most advanced thinkers, yet in no depart- 
ment is more progress being made than in that of religious 
thought. The time will come, and is rapidly approaching, 
when the human image will recognize its original, when the 
true relationship between God and man will establish a divine 
symphony upon earth, when discord will cease and the* millen- 
nium will become an established fact. But speculating on 
future possibilities not coming within the scope of this inquiry, 
avc turn back to the young child and follow it, step by step and 
day by day, seeking to know what it is, stripping it of all mys- 
tery and analyzing the causes which operate to produce such 



Freedom and Necessity. Ill 

complicated effects. Having traced it from its starting point — 
a mere speck — through causes over which it can have no con- 
trol, up to its power of receiving external impressions, and hav- 
ing found it a pliable, unresisting mass of matter, modeled and 
moulded by forces external to itself, and having found these 
causes to become more complicated with each day of its exist- 
ence, we approach the period when, without the most steady 
vigilance and comprehensive grasp of our reasoning powers, 
we shall become bewildered and shrink back into the shadows, 
leaving the bright gleam of the intellect to waste its rays in the 
propagation of error. 

"That period of growth in which the intellectual faculties 
begin to play a part in the economy of man is one of peculiar 
interest, and if the thread is broken here, we shall ever after- 
ward grope in the dark." 



112 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

THE SOTJL. 

"However successful the attempt may have been to cast 
ridicule upon the modern theory of evolution, and however harsh 
it may sound to some ears, we know that the child is not now 
made, but grows. 'We see the mind, the affections, the soul (if 
you will) gradually arising, forming, as the body waxes, sym- 
pathizing in all the permanent changes and temporary varia- 
tions of the body, diseased with its diseases, enfeebled by its 
weakness, disordered by dyspepsia or suppressed gout, utterly 
metamorphosed past recognition by cerebral affection, hopelessly 
deranged by a spicula of bone penetrating the brain, actually 
suppressed by a vascular effusion or a cranial depression, 
wearied as the body ages, and gradually sinking into imbecility 
as the body dies away in helplessness.' From birth to five years 
of age includes a period in which the void between a mass of 
helpless matter, and a sentient, rational creature is filled. Some- 
thing by some means has entered the body that was not there 
before, or at least did not manifest itself. This something has 
been in dispute from time immemorial, and is as much an un- 
settled matter now as ever. It is spoken of as the Soul, and 
what is exactly meant, it is difficult to determine. We are ac- 
customed to speak of the soul, its immortality, its pleasures and 
pains, its residence in the body during life and its departure at 
death. If we look at a stillborn child we have an indescrib- 
able sensation of work unperformed — of negative result — of 
something left out of the contract. The idea of a soul in any 
way connected with a child that has never breathed is not and 
cannot be entertained. How different when we look upon the 
corpse of a friend! 'The impression made is indefinable, and 
is not the result of any conscious process of thought that that 
body, quite unchanged to the eye, is not and never was your 
friend.' Something has departed which was intimately con- 
nected with it, and which came to it after birth. This, I ap- 
prehend, is the almost universal thought and feeling in regard 
to this vexed subject. Here, as in other matters, the shadows 
obscure the light, and the anthem of hope robs a cold and merci- 



The Soul. 113 

less philosophy of its truth. Indeed, the force of all appeals 
to sustain this view is directed, not to the understanding, but 
to the subordinate and untrustworthy offshoots of the reason- 
ing faculty. So prominently is this set forth, even by good 
reasoners, that I may be pardoned for quoting at length from 
the great expounder of biblical lore — Adam Clark. 'Let us 
figure to ourselves, for we may innocently do it, the state of 
the divine nature previous to the formation of the human be- 
ing. Infinitely happy, because infinitely perfect and self-suffi- 
cient, the Supreme Being could feel no wants; to him noth- 
ing was wanting, nothing needful. As the "good man is satis- 
fied from himself," from the contemplation of his conscious 
rectitude; so, comparing infinitely great with small things, the 
divine mind was supremely satisfied with the possession and 
contemplation of its own unlimited excellencies. From un- 
mixed, unsullied goodness sprang all the endlessly varied at- 
tributes, perfections, and excellencies of the divine nature; or, 
rather, in this principle all are founded, and of this each is 
an especial modification. Benevolence is, however, an affection 
inseparable from goodness. God, the all-sufficient, knew that 
he could, in a certain way, communicate influences from his 
own perfections; but the being must resemble himself to whom 
this communication could be made. His benevolence, therefore, 
to communicate and diffuse his own infinite happiness, we may 
naturally suppose, led him to form the purpose of creating in- 
telligent beings to whom such communications could be made. 
II<-. therefore, in the exuberance of his eternal goodness, pro- 
jected the creation of man, whom lie formed in bis own Image, 
that In- might he capable of those communications. Here, then, 
was ;i motive worthy of eternal goodness, the desire t<> eom- 
municate its own blessedness; and bere was an object worthy 
of the divine wisdom and power, the main tig an intelligent 
creature ;i transcript of hi- own eternity, jusl loss than God; 
mid endowing him with powers and faculties of the mosl ex- 
traordinary and comprehensive nature. I do not found these 
ol servatione on tin- supposition of certain excellencies possessed 
by man previous t<. hi- fall; I found them on what he is now, 
I found them on hi- v;i-t and comprehensive understanding; 
8 



114 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

on his astonishing powers of ratiocination; on the extent and 
endless variety of his imagination or inventive faculty; and I 
see the proof and exercise of these in his invention of arts and 
sciences. Though fallen from God, naturally degraded and de- 
praved, he has not lost his natural powers; he is yet capable 
of the most exalted degrees of knowledge in all natural things ; 
and his "knowledge is power." Let us take a cursory view of 
what he has done and of what he is capable : He has numbered 
the stars of heaven; he has demonstrated the planetary revo- 
lutions and the laws by which they are governed; he has ac- 
counted for every apparent anomaly in the various affections 
of the heavenly bodies ; he has measured their distances, de- 
termined their solid contents, and weighed the sun! His re- 
searches in the three kingdoms of nature, the animal, the vege- 
table, and the mineral, are, for their variety, correctness, and 
importance of the highest consideration. The laws of matter, 
of organized and unorganized beings, and those chemical prin- 
ciples by which all the operations of nature are conducted, 
have been investigated by him with the utmost success. He 
has shown the father of the rain, and who has begotten the 
drops of dew; he has accounted for the formation of the snow, 
the hailstones, and the ice ; and demonstrated the laws by which 
the tempest and tornado are governed; he has taken the thun- 
der from the clouds; and he plays with the lightnings of 
heaven ! He has invented those grand subsidiaries of life, the 
lever, the screw, the wedge, the inclined plane and the pul- 
ley: and by these means multiplied his power beyond concep- 
tion; he has invented the telescope, and by this instrument 
has brought the hosts of heaven almost into contact with the 
earth. By his engines he has acquired a sort of omnipotency 
over inert matter, and produced effects which, to the im in- 
structed mind, present all the appearances of supernatural 
agency. By his mental energy he has sprung up into illimitable 
space and has seen and described those worlds which an in- 
finite skill has planned, and an infinite benevolence sustains. 
He has proceeded to all describable and assignable limits, and 
has conceived the most astonishing relations and affections of 
space, place, and vacuity; and yet, at all these limits, he has 
felt himself unlimited; and still can imagine the possibility of 



The Soul. 115 

worlds and beings, natural and intellectual, in endless variety 
beyond the whole. Here is a most extraordinary power; de- 
scribe all known or conjectured beings, and he can imagine 
more; point out all the good that even God has promised, and 
he can desire still greater enjoyments. Of no creature but 
man is it said that it was made in the image and likeness of 
God. Xow, as the divine Being is infinite, he is neither limited 
by parts nor definable by passions; therefore he can have no 
corporeal image after which he made the body of man. The 
image and likeness must be intellectual; his mind, his soul, 
must have been formed after the nature and perfections of his 
God. The human mind is still endowed with most extraor- 
dinary capacities ; it was more so when issuing out of the 
hands of its creator. The text tells us he was the work of 
Elohim, the divine plurality, marked here more distinctly by 
the plural nouns Us and Our; and, to show that he was the 
masterpiece of God's creation, all the persons in the Godhead 
are represented as united in council and effort to produce this 
astonishing creature.' 

"This beautiful tribute to the greatness of the human un- 
derstanding, by a profound thinker and honest seeker after 
truth, only illustrates the mazes into which the reasoning facul- 
ties become entangled by studying man in his maturity, and de- 
ducing conclusions from assumed postulates. The language of 
the text itself is faulty, and, 'well is it for us if we always re- 
member the difference between what is said and what is meant, 
and if, while we pity the heathen for worshiping stocks and 

re not ourselves kneeling down before the frail im- 
ages of human fancy.'* 

"God, in fad, in its true sense, is a word which admits of 
no plural, and changes it-- meaning a- booh ;i- it assumes the 
termination of that number, j 

"The Elohim, under the ruling <»i' this Christian philolog 
would revert to the mythical. If language is thus misleading, 
how are we to know whal the sacred volume really teaches 1 
Is it not hotter to tru-t to our own rational conclusions than 
to gorge ourselves with tin- helpless jargon of unknown tongues f 



•Miiii<T. Science of rrftppiftg*. VW. n. page 465. 

t /'"'/., page 438. 



116 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"Now, of any soul that is a distinct and separate entity, apart 
from the conscious mental and spiritual life; a soul that a man 
has, and that can be saved, apart from his mental and moral 
condition, according to the teachings of the popular revivalists ; 
a soul that is in a man and yet not simply and wholly him- 
self — of such a soul I must confess that I know nothing what- 
ever. And if any one is disposed to be troubled on this point 
in connection with evolution, perhaps it is well to remind him 
that he will find no relief in Genesis. Moses knows nothing of 
any such soul. The Hebrew word for the soul of Adam, and 
for the souls, or life, of the animals is precisely the same. When 
it is written 'The Elohim breathed into his nostrils and he be- 
came a living soul,' it would be just as correct to say, 'He be- 
came alive, or a living being or animal.' There is no hint 
that his soul was any different from that of any other creature's 
soul. This does not touch the question of the nature of the 
soul or of immortality; it only shows that there is no more 
light in Genesis than there is in evolution. Now, if the soul 
is an entity, and capable of independent life after death — in 
other words, if it be immortal — it either had a beginning or it 
existed always. If it is a creation, if there ever was a time 
when it did not exist, then it must eventually come to an end. 
That which has a beginning must have an ending. It is im- 
possible for the human mind to conceive of an eternity in the 
future that is not an eternity in the past. And all Scripture 
bears witness to the human intellect that the whole creation 
will eventually come to an end. Philosophy and the Scriptures 
both teach that the creation is finished, and the multitudinous 
forms in which matter is seen is only a manifestation of the 
endless variety of change that indestructible material is for- 
ever assuming. We know that in the birth of a human being 
there is no creation of a new body; it is only old matter in a 
new dress, and if the soul is a separate entity, created especially 
for each birth, there must be a period in life when the soul 
enters the body; and if each body has a new soul created 
especially for its habitation, then, when the body dies the soul 
is homeless. But if the soul has existed from all eternity, 
its residence in the body gives us no remembrance of the fact, 
and logically speaking we can have no knowledge of its future 



The Soul. 117 

existence. If it be an emanation from God, it must go back to 
God at the dissolution of the body, and personal identity is lost 
again. To separate mind from matter and still recognize its 
existence is an impossible task, a thing of which there is no 
satisfactory evidence. Pope Leo the Tenth caused this ques- 
tion to be discussed pro and con- before him, and concluded at 
last with that verse of Cornelius Gallus, 'Et redit in nihihon, 
quod fuit ante nihil/ " 

The pious itinerant listened to the long discourse of his 
host with mingled feelings of sadness and impatience. He 
could see the workings of an honest mind in the throes of an 
abortive labor and he felt a pang of melancholy as he con- 
templated the recusancy of intellectual pride. He saw in the 
person before him one, not wilfully blind, but with eyes, and 
seeing not; and having ears, hearing not. The emotions, the 
passions, sentiment ; the affections, both moral and sympathetic ; 
love, hope, despair, and all the endless branches, leaves and 
blossoms of the stately, time-honored, majestic tree of life had 
been crushed and buried under the iron heel of reason. Here 
was an intellectual machine pure and simple. The manhood 
had been squeezed out of the man, and all that remained was a 
luniiiinified burlesque of the original. To contend with such 
a man was like working a sum in quadratic equations ; but 
the traveler invoked the aid of St. Peter, and girded up the 
loins of his mind for the contest. 

"To such an one as yourself," he replied, "the reasoning 
faculty is the sum total of value in the complicated fittings of 
thai multifarious organ — the mind. You utterly ignore the 
value of those others which you call 'dependents,' 'subordinate 
and untrustworthy offshoots of the reasoning faculty*; 'gaudy 
trappings by which it is surrounded,' etc. This, of course, 
includes the emotions, the moral and religious facul 
persona] and sympathetic affections, and love. You would 

Strip the tree of branches, leaves, blossoms and fruit. Von 

would destroy thai which God has made and substitute an 
intellectual monster a cold, heartless, calculating machine, de- 
void of soul, and call il b man. Be fair. Go bads and acknowl- 
edge the premises. Build your argument upon all the facts. 
Take love, for instance, and analyze and explain its workings. 



118 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

The German mind, with all its infidel tendencies, has paused 
here and asked for more light. It is unable to make a mechani- 
cal solution of the wonders of this passion. Haeckel, even, 
who denies the existence of God, is at a loss to account for love. 
His theory of the universe fails to satisfy him of its origin and 
scope. He says : 'All other passions that agitate the human 
breast are in their combined effects far less powerful than love, 
which inflames the senses and fools the understanding. On the 
one hand, we gratefully glorify love as the source of the most 
splendid creations of art; of the noblest productions of poetry, 
of plastic art and of music; we reverence in it the most power- 
ful factor in human civilization, the basis of family life, and, 
consequently, of the development of the state. On the other 
hand, we fear in it the devouring flame which drives the unfor- 
tunate to ruin, and which has caused more misery, vice, and 
crime than all the other evils of the human race together.' 

"He says that here, 'supernatural causation seems to mock 
every natural explanation.'" And you, in your blind zeal, would 
expunge this power from the human breast. Subject it to the 
frozen midnight of reason, and ask it whence, and whither? Is 
there any reason in protecting the aged and the infirm? Are 
the hopelessly insane fed, clothed, and nursed from any deduc- 
tions of the reasoning faculty? Why should we shelter and 
cherish the imbecile, the deaf, dumb, and the blind ? Why give 
to the poor? Are the great public charities of every civilized 
country the outcome of logic? Is reason the image of God in 
man, or is it love ? The Bible says, 'God is love,' but it nowhere 
says, He is reason. Of course, your not recognizing the Bible 
as authority, this statement will count for little, but you cannot 
doubt that this passion has as great an influence over human 
conduct as reason; and, were it left to a vote of the whole hu- 
man race, I question very much whether love or reason would 
be voted out. As to the importance of the two in regard to the 
continuance of the human race, there can be but one answer. 
Man might continue upon the earth without reason, but, without 
love, the present generation would be the last. As an affection 
of the soul, this passion is one of the most, if not the most im- 
portant factor in that manifold creation; and instead of being 
subsidiary to reason, as you would place it, reason is more often 
the servitor of love. 



The Soul. 119 

"Your criticism of Dr. Clark in the quotation you make is 
more unjust than unkind. While you ignore every faculty of 
the soul except the thinking principle, Dr. Clark, in his beauti- 
ful thoughts on God and man, combines in the happiest man- 
ner the three most essential qualities of an intellectual being; 
and, allowing each to play its legitimate part, brings the finite 
into view with the infinite, and truly honors God by giving 
honor to the image. Reason, Imagination, and Love combined 
are the faculties which place man so far above the brute. As the 
hub, spokes, and rim make the wheel, so these three faculties 
form the soul; all being equally essential to its completion. 
Dr. Clark's tribute to the greatness of the human understand- 
ing is simply a recognition of the soul in its entirety, and any 
attempt to grasp its substance is as futile as it is absurd. To 
deny its existence because of our inability to bottle it up, or 
hold it in the hand, is on a par with the denial of electricity, 
the sun's rays, or the flame from a gas jet. Imponderable, im- 
material substances exist with as much certainty as iron or 
stone. 

"The phenomenology of mind is the only mental science we 
may study. Its essence, its substance is too ethereal for our 
senses, yet its phenomena prove its substance, as phenomena 
can no more proceed from phenomena than hybrids can pro- 
ceed from hybrids. There is no conflict here between science 
and religion, and rightly understood, philosophy and the word 
of God must go hand in hand ; the first being only an under- 
standing and interpretation of the laws of the universe, the lat- 
ter an averment of those laws. The existence of ideas alone, 
taughl in the philosophy of dogmatic skepticism, proves that a 
spiritual universe does exist, and in this universe the soul of 
man lias a place. 

"If Dr. Clark's elaboration of biblical theology is a mere jar- 
gon of words; if evolution be true and the fall of man a myth; 
if mind, spirit, soul, be stricken from the Language of thought, 
or rather be defined as a John Doe or Richard Roe, then 'we 
are of all men the most miserable.' 

"Man is not what God made him. Were the Scriptures silent 

on the subject, all reason and common sense would at once de- 
clare thai it is impossible that the infinitely pcrfecl (Jod eonl, 1 



120 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

make a morally imperfect, much less a corrupt and sinful being. 
Yet God is the maker of man, and he tells us that he made him 
in his own image and in his own likeness ; it follows, then, that 
man has fallen from that state of holiness and perfection in 
which he was created." 



Phenomena. 121 



CHAPTER IX. 

PHENOMENA. 

The old schoolmaster was not only astonished at the ready 
wit and logical argument of his guest, but he was pleased to 
observe the enthusiasm with which he entered into and main- 
tained the defense of his position. With the view of drawing 
him out still further, and also to maintain his own ground, he 
replied as follows : 

"The same difficulties present themselves and lead to subter- 
fuges incompatible with philosophical inquiry, whenever con- 
clusions are attempted to be drawn from assumed postulates. 

"A recapitulation here may be of service in elucidating the 
untenable position you have taken. In the first place, you 
assume that God, by an act of creation, brought the world into 
existence, with all the trees and plants and animals, and saw 
that his work was good ; and in the plenitude of his power, and 
the infinite benevolence of his own eternal goodness, he formed 
the purpose of creating intelligent beings to whom he might 
communicate his own happiness. Notwithstanding his attri- 
butes of infinity as regards power and wisdom, he is represented, 
alone, as hardly able to accomplish his self-appointed task; but 
in a council of the 'Divine Plurality,' whatever thai may be, 
this masterpiece of his work — this astonishing creature, man — 
was made, and made in his own image and likeness, a transcripl 
of his own eternity, [f man is not what God made him, and 
not what God intended him to be, it argues incompetency on 
the pari of God, and notwithstanding the deliberations of the 
Triune Council, in which the entire Godhead is represented as 
exhausted, the work became one of surprise and chagrin, more 
than was anticipated; in a certain sense on an equality with 
its Maker ami capable of thwarting and nullifying his designs. 
In M»rs. Shelley's uncanny romance, the horrible monster of 
her imagination crops out as an exaggerated parody on the first 
and second chapters of Genesis." 

No word-, of scoffing, ii" speech of blasphemy could have ex- 
cited a keener pang in the breasl of our unhappy I raveler than a 
comparison of all thai is Loathsome -the horrid remnants of the 



122 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

churchyard and dissecting-room, the Frankenstein monster of 
a morbid and diseased imagination — to the perfect work of 
God, the creation of man. While this man of thought, of 
worldly wisdom, of intellectual pride; this octogenarian with 
one foot in the grave, who had studied every page of the great 
book of nature, and arrived at conclusions at variance with the 
religious world, thought nothing of his inelegant adumbration, 
his companion was mortified, shocked; stunned as with the 
blow of a cudgel. His spiritual nature revolted at the coarse- 
ness of the simile, but remembering that every faculty of the 
soul, save reason, was excluded from this conversation, he 
checked his emotions and proceeded with his reply in the fol- 
lowing manner : 

• "It appears that the difficulties in your way of comprehend- 
ing immaterial forces are as real and as blinding to a knowl- 
edge of the truth as it is for you to understand the difference 
between the vacillating opinions of men and the written word 
of God. A phenomenon can only exist or become manifest as 
the result of substance. A shadow is a phenomenon caused by 
light and an opaque object. Growth, in the animal and vege- 
table kingdoms, is a phenomenon of material substances. Physi- 
cal pain is also a phenomenon of matter ; but mental pain ! 
what is that ? Material substance is the cause of toothache, but 
can material substance cause remorse of conscience? One is as 
much a phenomenon as the other, and may be equally as griev- 
ous. If substance and phenomena stand in the relation of cause 
and effect, how are we to account for phenomena in no way 
connected with matter? Good, evil, right, wrong, love, hate, 
revenge, forgiveness, affection, gratitude, etc., being mere ab- 
stractions, can only be classed with phenomena, and, having 
no relation with matter, must necessarily be the phenomena of 
something besides matter. Electricity is, perhaps, no more an 
entity than the soul of man, but the phenomena of electricity 
attest its substance. We have the same right to believe that an 
immaterial principle or soul exists in the human body as we have 
to believe in the law of gravitation or the forces of chemical 
affinity. The evidences in favor of all are precisely the same — 
effects produced. There is this difference, however, between 
these forces of nature and the force that operates on the human 



Phenomena. 123 

organism : the first operates always in the same way, under the 
same circumstances, while the last acts of its own accord, being 
influenced only by its own will. This is what made it possible 
for man to take a step backwards and swerve from the line of 
duty marked out by his Creator. This by no means invalidates 
the power of God, but rather exalts his omnipotency, showing 
that he had the power to create something like unto himself. 
In order to show to man that this delegated power of free 
agency was a free gift to himself, the Creator placed him in the 
world under certain restrictions. ~Ro command was given him 
but what he was perfectly able to keep. Yet God gave him the 
power to break the law, which he did to the ruin of himself and 
all his posterity. The fall was no disappointment to God, but 
so utterly confused was man at his own folly that he attempted 
to hide, and excused himself by saying he was tempted. For 
this act of disobedience the whole human race was cursed, the 
ground was cursed, and every living thing on earth was cursed, 
and the curse stands to this day a living witness to the truth of 
the Word. 'In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children' was said 
to the woman, and if there was no other evidence to prove the 
truth of the fall and the curse, this is sufficient; for science is 
utterly inadequate to explain the pains of childbirth. For a 
healthy female in a perfectly normal process to be tortured with 
the excruciating miseries of the damned is inexplicable except 
upon the theory of the fall. No other physiological process is 
tided with pain, and this pain can be of no possible advan- 
to the parturient female. 
"Tin- most ultra skeptic cannot doubt that God (or the foi 
of Nature, it" he prefers it I could have made the act of parturi- 
tion painless, like digestion or the beating of the heart. For 
jill other pains to which the animal economy is subject there is 
an adequate cause, a justifiable and pathological reason; for 
this pain science is a sealed book; physiology is dumb and 

pathology has no answer. There is i ther reason under 

heaven given, Bave that in Genesis, and that man must !><• blind. 
indeed, who refuses the only answer to a known fact. 'That 
this curse extends to the lower animal- i- evident \^v the Bame 

reason. No "tic who ever witnessed the throes of labor in t ho 

brute can doubt that it i- accompanied with pain. The pun- 



124 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

ishment of infants is another inexplicable fact upon scientific 
grounds alone. That much of the pain, sickness and misery 
attached to the nursery is the result of carelessness and igno- 
rance no rational observer can doubt ; but no known law, or 
violation of a known law of nature, can account for idiots, 
monsters, and the maimed. Accident cannot come into the 
count; chance is outside the pale of both science and theology. 
The law of hereditary transmission does not account for all the 
anomalies in nature, and, as you base your philosophy and 
theology upon facts, it behooves you to account for these and 
many other inexplicable things before you attach the stigma of 
falsehood to what a large part of the religious world believes 
to be the written word of God." 

Mr. Eliot was never more in his element than when teach- 
ing, and the more learned his pupil, the more interest he felt in 
the lesson. On this occasion he began to perceive a gleam of 
light way in the background of Dogmatic Theology, which he 
had long looked upon as a land of Cimmerian darkness. The 
boom of a signal in the depths, faint, yet distinct, fell upon his 
ear, as this mysterious stranger presented his facts and asked 
for explanations. A spiritual universe, shadowy and tenuous, 
began to flit in his mental atmosphere, and but for the aliena- 
tion incident to the teachings of men who make religion a trade, 
this filament of spiritual truth might have developed into a 
cable of hope, "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, 
both sure and steadfast." Instead, however, of pursuing this 
signal, and following the luminous ray, he cast about for a 
"bushel" that he might hide what he termed a "candle of marsh 
gas." 

"Your reasoning," said he, "is too much in a circle, and pay- 
ing rather a domiciliary visit to the material philosophy, it 
savors more of quiddities than dialectics. I am a great be- 
liever in the material universe. I am a part of it. There may 
be a spiritual universe; I do not deny it, but I know nothing 
of it ! There is electricity, but I know it not except in some 
way connected with matter. There is thought, there is truth, 
love, hate, revenge, affection, memory, even dreams; but these 
must be matter in the shape of an organized entity, or they do 
not exist. 



Phenomena. 125 

"The theologian harasses himself and all the world by his 
empty, unprovable theories — his vaporizings ; sets up his dogmas 
to-day and changes them or knocks them down to-morrow ; 
yet whilst he holds them, he is ready to burn or ostracize any 
and all men who do not assent to them. The student of the 
Big Bible, the universe, with its pages spread open for the study 
and research of all, can demonstrate as he goes, and that which 
he cannot yet understand and prove, he refuses to promulgate 
and demand of others to take for granted because he might 
simply think, hope, and believe so and so. The invisible and 
incorporeal forces, light, sound, electricity, attraction, repul- 
sion, etc., manifest themselves only in connection with material 
substance, and it is not susceptible of proof that these names 
indicate anything material or immaterial separate and distinct 
from the substances with which they are connected. Without 
an eye there is no light, without the ear no sound, without mat- 
ter no attraction, and without the conditions for its generation 
and accumulation, no manifestation of electricity. If mind, 
spirit, soul is to be compared with these forces, the logical 
sequence is irresistible — without a body, no spirit, no soul. 
Every attempt at reasoning carries you irresistibly to the Pan- 
theistic view, which supposes the human soul to be a part of 
the Deity, and I am not certain but that the Christian Bible 
teaches the same thing where it says : 

"'Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit 
shall return unto God who gave it.' 

"'Twas despair and disgust which prompted Pope Leo the 
Tenth to dismiss hi- prelates with such biting Barcasm, after 
hearing their discussion on this overwrought and ill-treated sub- 
ject. 'Tis with kindred feelings of emptiness that the intel- 
lectual world, at this day, seeks a now philosophy. The human 
mind i- bo constituted as not to he satisfied with hopes alone, 
not- to be hopelessly crushed by tear. The popular teachings 
are little else than appeals to these two passions. Much is said 

in the pulpit and" at religious meetings about the soul — of it< 

pleasures, its pain-, and its destiny. Ask one of the popular 
revivalists what the soul is, and his answer will he as unsatis- 
factory as lii- OWH concept ion of i'. 



126 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"If we take a juicy peach and ask where it got its flavor, or 
a full-blown rose and ask whence its odor, or, if we look upon 
the fragrance of the rose as something which has come from 
afar off and gotten into the rose, or upon the flavor of the peach 
as an entity which by some unaccountable means has come to 
the peach and incorporated itself in its substance, we shall rea- 
son about as satisfactorily as when we attempt to separate the 
soul from the body. If a green peach has any flavor it is like 
the latent heat of a lump of ice, and while the judgment of all 
men will agree that the ripening of the peach is the cause of its 
flavor, the proof can never be else than negative. The flavor 
may be something independent of the peach, and merely seeking 
the peach for its temporary home, to manifest itself for the 
benefit of whatever animal that chances to smell or eat it. When 
the peach decays or is eaten the flavor is gone, but we cannot 
by any process of ratiocination prove that it is annihilated. 
Immaterial things can only be studied from their manifesta- 
tions, and anything beyond is purely imaginary and gratuitous. 
If the stillborn child ever had a soul, the human mind is too 
dull to conceive of it ; if the new-born babe, an hour or a day 
old, has a soul, we cannot perceive it unless we call its breath 
soul, and in that case reason would resort to ridicule, and 
shame the faith of a believer in witches. The vague concep- 
tions in regard to this all-important matter may be traced to 
the same causes which we find operating to delude the senses 
in studying man's physical nature. We study the soul in its 
maturity and hardly admit its existence until its environment 
becomes so inextricably entangled in the meshes of cause and 
effect that we lose the substance in the twilight of the shadows. 
When the peach begins to ripen it begins to have a flavor, when 
the child begins to grow it begins to have a soul, i. e., we begin 
to see a manifestation of it. ISTow, as the soul waxes with the 
body, we will go back to the infant at its mother's breast and 
watch its development from babyhood to boyhood. As was pre- 
viously stated, this period is one continuous scene of bewilder- 
ment. It is a new life in a new world, surrounded by new ob- 
jects, and without capacity to form any ideas of what it sees, 
feels, or hears. It is as much a thing of necessity so far as it is 
concerned as a sprouted seed in a rich or poor soil. Its mother's 



Phenomena. 127 

breast, a warm cradle, soap and water, colic and paregoric are 
about the principal things it conies in contact with for the first 
year of its existence. 

"It is influenced solely by its surroundings, and its first ideas 
are formed from materials which are so imperfect and untrue 
that it has to unlearn nearly all it ever learns in the first years 
of life. Nursery tales and ghost stories form the principal 
food upon which its brain is fed, and the imagination is culti- 
vated out of all proportion to any other faculty of the mind. 
These baleful influences operating upon a sensitive and plastic 
nature leave their imprints, and enter the list of causes to make 
men and women what they are. The young child being without 
experience, and its tender and immature brain being too feeble 
to form ideas, except of the simplest kind, it must needs be the 
sport of its surroundings and the projectile, as it were, of its 
own vitality and inborn essence. This vis vitce of each one im- 
pels it forward in a different track from that of its neighbor, 
though the external conditions of life be the same; and thus it 
is we see such a difference in children of the same parentage. 
One will be neat and tidy from the beginning, another slovenly. 
One will be all life and vivacity, another morose or taciturn. 
One will be the soul of honor and truth, another will not hesi- 
tate to prevaricate or speak an untruth. One will be prodigal, 
another penurious, one tender-hearted, another brutish, and so 
on. These inborn qualities are the result of causes which, if 
we undertake to trace them to their source, we shall never be 
able to stop this side of eternity. Every child born into the 
world i> the offspring of some other child thai has lived before 
ir, and it would be a mailer of impossibility for it to he here 
now if it had not descended by an unbroken chain of life 

through all the generations of the earth since the first pair was 
Created Before we conclude that any child can he other than 

jUSl what it is, we shall have to give it power to undo the 

mighty workings of this universe, blot ou1 the past, and sup- 
plant God." 



128 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK X. 

RESPONSIBILITY. 

The impression made on the schoolmaster's guest by this last 
sally in defense of the material philosophy was not only un- 
pleasant, but exceedingly troublous. He disliked to think the 
issue was unfairly met, and was unwilling to admit that his 
friend had purposely evaded what he considered a very knotty 
point for the skeptical philosopher; still he felt disposed to 
remind him again of those phenomena incident to life on the 
earth, which it is impossible to associate with any form of mat- 
ter in the relation of cause and effect. And with the view of 
bringing him back to the point which he considered most diffi- 
cult of solution, he declared that: 

"We are so constituted that we rely on the uniformity of 
nature's laws, and, therefore, believe that they will operate in 
the future as they have operated in the past. This constitu- 
tional propensity is wisely given, fitting us to shape our course 
in the world ; and, for all the purposes for which it was given, 
it does not deceive us, but there are limits within which the 
propensity must be restrained. A child asks the cause of some- 
thing which he notices, and when we have answered, he asks, 
'What is the cause of that?' and when, in answering his suc- 
cessive inquiries, we have led his mind up to God as a First 
Cause, he asks, 'Who made God?' we may very wisely tell him 
that God is self -existent ; but this means nothing more than 
that his inquisitive philosophy must stop here, having reached 
its utmost bounds. E"ow, whether we can metaphysically ac- 
count for it or not, there is a propensity in the human mind 
to regard each moral agent as a sort of original source of action, 
somewhat as we conceive of God. This propensity, perhaps as 
universal as the propensity to rely on the uniformity of na- 
ture's laws, may have been given us for the very purpose of 
checking our philosophy when it would presume to explain the 
origin of evil in the heart of a moral agent. Accustomed, as it 
is, to contemplate the relation of cause and effect, operating in 
an established order of sequence, it does not submit to consider 



Responsibility. 1 29 

man an original source of action, but labors to account for the 
moral evil in him by causes operating from without, and ulti- 
mately traces it to God. 

"It may be well to inquire whether philosophy, when it 
pushes the doctrine of necessity into the inmost Arcana of this 
subject, does not assume in the premises from which it reasons 
that there is a natural inertia in mind, as in matter ; or, rather, 
a sort of natural immutability. A chemical experiment oper- 
ates now precisely as it would have done before the flood, be- 
cause every atom of matter has precisely the same properties 
now that it had then. Matter has a natural immutability ; but 
can this be predicated of mind? And does not philosophy 
assume it when it applies the doctrine of necessity to mental 
phenomena without any limitation, and boldly carries back the 
authorship of sin to God as the First Cause? There is a ten- 
dency in the human mind to a fixed state of virtue or vice, by 
the power of habit; but a natural immutability of the mind, 
anterior to the formation of habits, philosophy ought not to 
assume. Matter, in each atom, is immutable; and it is mutable 
only in its combinations. The mind of man, though an uncom- 
pounded essence, is not immutable. God has made matter im- 
mutable, or operates immutably in matter. But if he has not 
chosen to operate in the same manner in mind, but has made 
each mind, in some sort, an original source of action, philosophy 
must submit to push her orders of sequence with confidence 
only where she has firm ground to stand on. 

'Tour explanation, or, rather, your evasion of an explana- 
tion of phenomena which are patent to all men does you an 
Injustice. You say, 'There may be a spiritual universe; I do 
not deny it, bul I know nothing of it. 1 At the Bame time you 
are a great believer in the material universe, and asserl thai 
yon are a pari of it. Now, do you really know anything of 
matter? Do you know that yon yourself exist? Dogmatic 
skepticism asserts thai nothing exist- bu1 ideas. All else, it 
. may be delusion, h knows nothing of any material uni- 
verse; it know- nothing of matter, spirit, or phenomena. It is 

the only real agnostic. Do you know thai an atom of oxygen 

exists? No, you only believe it, and your belief is well founded 
9 



130 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

because it is based upon logical induction. You see results of 
chemical combinations that force you to believe in the exist- 
ence of an atom of oxygen. You believe that the different 
combinations of these atoms form the different oxides. 

"Your reason forces you to this belief. Yery well! You 
see, also, combinations in the operations of men which we may 
term, for the sake of illustration, spiritual oxides. Matter never 
combines itself in a way to produce artificial results. These 
artificial results — man's works — are the spiritual oxides of this 
world. We see them in all the operations of men, and we see 
them in the operations of animals, of birds, and of insects. 
Something is behind matter that is not matter, when matter 
combines itself in the form of railroads, steamboats, houses to 
live in, clothes to wear, and food prepared to eat. Something 
is behind matter, also, that is not matter, when it combines it- 
self in the shape of the honeycomb, the bird's nest, and the ant- 
hill. Now, here are the results of a spiritual chemistry, as 
patent and as demonstrable as that oxide of iron is the result 
of a material chemistry. The atom of oxygen is in this iron 
rust, and the atom of spirit is in those houses, these railroads, 
and these ant-hills. You have seen the one just as much as you 
have seen the other. The evidence for the one is precisely the 
same as the evidence for the other. You believe in the one, 
and while you don't deny the other, you say that you know noth- 
ing of it. Strange, incongruous inconsistency ! Where is your 
boasted power of induction and deduction? Is philosophy un- 
worthy of her rank when she comes in contact with religion? 
Be fair, as I said to you once before. Take all the facts, all 
the combinations, and go back with your credulity and your 
skepticism. Find the atom of spirit as you find the atom of 
matter. Believe from evidence, and let your faith be directed 
by reason." 

"My dear friend," replied the teacher, "you run ahead of the 
argument. You would clothe the man while I wash the baby. 
You go up by the elevator and deny that the house has stairs. 
Philosophical truth must be sought as we find the result in 
mathematics. Deducing unknown truths from principles al- 
ready known amounts to demonstration. We started at the very 
beginning of life, and we have followed the child through its 



Responsibility. 131 

purely animal life, to where it has become a sentient, intelligent 
being. It has passed from childhood; and before entering 
into the details of boyhood, it may be as well to make some 
observations in respect to knowledge or truth, and the differ- 
ent means of obtaining it. 

"The greatest bulk of our knowledge is acquired through the 
perceptive faculties. Until the understanding begins to ripen 
and the reasoning powers begin to mature, our knowledge is 
simply an accumulation or storing away of impressions received 
through the organs of sense. The ultimate truth of many of 
these impressions is never doubted. They seem to be axiomatic 
or self-evident; thus, two and two are equal to four; anything 
round is not square ; yellowness is not sweetness ; fire and water 
are not alike, and so on, in a thousand instances. This kind of 
knowledge is obtained mostly by experience and the instruction 
of others ; and while it is subject to the imperfection of our 
bodily organs, and only partially reliable, it is the foundation 
on which the reasoning powers build and erect those monu- 
ments of truth which hold through all time. If the senses 
were never deceived, the judgment would never go astray; but 
in accumulating this storehouse of primary knowledge, error 
creeps in with truth, and the mixing is so intimate that, how- 
ever logically reason may set forth her claims, the end is often- 
times false. Indeed, the stricter the logic, the greater the devi- 
ation from truth when the premises are not well founded. 
Right here is the point of deflection between minds of equal 
capacity in search of truth which is out of reach of the senses. 
Earnest men contend over questions of abstract truth, without 
considering the real point of difference, which more often lie- 
in their primary conceptions, or the error which deludes their 
imperfect organs of sense. 

"The subject of free will in man is one of those mystical de- 
lusions which, like ih" mirage of the desert. Leads its votaries 
on, blinding with desire and tempting with hope, until the 
weary traveler, despairing and exhausted, lies down in the 
sand to die. Solomon, with all his wisdom, aided by the power 
of inspiration, could never wholly divest himself of the blinding 
influence of emotion; could never calmly review the past, aor 

Contemplate the future without a wail; COuld OOl he content 



132 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

with, the ordinances of inexorable necessity and sip nectar from 
the rich storehouse of his knowledge; but as the veil of natural 
infirmities began to darken and blur the brilliant hues of a 
glory resplendent in its zenith, we hear him complaining that, 

" 'In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowl- 
edge, increaseth sorrow.' 

"Knowledge of the truth ought never to increase sorrow, for 
God is knowledge and truth; and Solomon in the bitterness of 
his anguish must have reasoned illogically from cause to effect, 
or have attempted to arrive at truth from a foundation of false- 
hood. The end in view which this discussion is intended to 
illustrate can no more come within the range of the bodily 
organs than that the perceptive faculties can make manifest 
the spherical shape of the earth. Premises which no man will 
deny, and from which reason will make her deductions, are the 
means to an end which, cavil as you may, can never be other 
than truth. 

"If the assertion that, 'Living matter cannot come from not 
living matter' be true, how is it possible for responsibility to 
proceed from that which is not responsible? Babyhood being 
father to boyhood, and babyhood, by common consent and by 
demonstration, being a state of irresponsibility, at what particu- 
lar time and by what mode does responsibility attach itself to 
boyhood? Responsibility implies will power, and something 
more; it implies power to do, or not to do, at the discretion of 
the individual. Power to do or not to do implies freedom of 
the will, but it by no means implies responsibility. God has 
power to do or not to do and perfect freedom of will, yet he 
is not responsible. Infants and brutes have will power, but 
the common sense of mankind, as well as the law of the land, 
attaches responsibility to neither. Now, if the boy has a free 
will and is responsible, and the baby has not a free will and is 
not responsible, this emancipation of the will must have taken 
place at some particular moment between infancy and youth. 
Acting upon this mistaken idea, legislators, in the poverty of 
their resources, have made it arbitrary. The law of some 
States makes seven years the age of responsibility. Blackstone 
quotes the ancient Saxon law as establishing twelve years as 



Responsibility. 1 33 

the age of possible discretion, and by the present English law 
as it now stands, and has stood at least ever since the time of 
Edward the Third, the capacity of doing ill, or contracting 
guilt, is not so much measured by years and days as by the 
strength of the delinquent's understanding and judgment; and 
yet he says : 

"'Under seven years of age, indeed, an infant cannot be guilty of 
felony, for a felonious discretion is almost an impossibility in nature ; 
but at eight years old be may be guilty of felony.' 

"With this arbitrary ruling the abstract truth involved will 
resolve itself into the following termination : A bright boy 
is seven years old to-day at noon. This morning he was irre- 
sponsible ; this afternoon he is responsible. This morning his 
will was under the dominion of the causes which produced it ; 
this evening the fetters of cause and effect have been loosed, 
and the will, imtrammeled and free, is no longer an effect, no 
longer subject to the laws of universal dominion, but in a mo- 
ment, in the twinkling of an eye, it becomes an independent 
entity, subject to no law and responsible to no power.* 

"This is logic. Man may be better than logic, but neverthe- 
less this is logic. It is man, principle and end of truth, as it 
is man, principle and end of creation. 

"The complications which invest legal procedure, and the 
judicial paradoxes involved in the settlement of causes attest 
the unsoundness of the structure upon which the system is 
based. Salient truths cropping out in the evolution of every 
judicial investigation of importance rebound with such force 
upon the arbitrary dicta of the lawmakers, that, to maintain the 
appearance of consistency, jurors are granted the same arbi- 
trary power; and it is left to the vacillating and capricious 
judgmenl of man to punish or condone crime. 

'•If the criminal he young — if he is not past the age of possi- 
ble discretion as laid down by the law — his crime La ao1 recog- 
nized; and oftentimes when his guill appears clear, the influ- 
ence of perverted feeling prevents the execution of a sentence 

which is just, and the law is a dead letter. 

*A gradual evolution of responsibility cannol )>«■ admitted, for that would Imply 
an evolution of punishment- a manifest Impossibility. The boy Is either responsible 
or he is not responsible, and punishment Lb based upon this hypothesis, ami not 
upon any idea of growth or gradual assumption of responsibility. 



134 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"If the unfortunate criminal should happen to be forty years 
old, we often see a chain of active forces in operation to punish 
without regard to law or justice. His prosecutors, urged by 
revenge or cupidity, exert themselves to their utmost, and the 
law, to maintain its dignity and to let the poor criminal know 
that he might have acted differently — to let him know that his 
will was free to do or not do — pronounces a sentence which 
involves life, and a crime is committed — judicial, it is true, but 
nevertheless a crime. The law assumes a right which it with- 
holds from its subjects. It assumes the prerogative of a self- 
constituted power whose code of ethics is might. It would ar- 
rogate to itself the peculiar privilege of infinite power, directed 
by the finite wisdom of man. It violates the golden rule in 
its every-day workings, and is capricious and uncertain to that 
extent that men are ever busy in efforts to circumvent and 
evade its action. 

"These observations are neither made to censure nor uphold 
the wisdom of legislation, for the exigencies of civil life re- 
quire many factitious ordinances which men in their moral 
and intellectual feebleness are constrained to tolerate. The 
question at issue being one of fact, they serve to illustrate the 
contradictions. 

"If evolution of responsibility be an untenable doctrine, noth- 
ing is left but to admit a sudden, momentary change from neces- 
sity to freedom — from irresponsibility to responsibility. If 
this be a fact, the time is definite, instantaneous, and ought 
to be determined. If evolution be admitted, then it necessitates 
a germ from which to evolve the responsibility, and this germ 
would entail the same upon the infant and even the foetus. 
Now, the facts and arguments in our analysis of Infancy 
would seem to clear the little fellow's skirts of all this rubbish, 
and we are only left the pitiful subterfuge of claiming an effect 
without a cause — of creating something out of nothing — of 
working a diabolical miracle at some moment in the life of every 
boy to make it possible to damn the future man. Nothing 
else can be made of it. Human reason will not admit of so 
vile a prostitution as annihilation before God, and a cringing 
servility at the shrine of Mockery and Chance." 



Secondary Causes. 135 



CHAPTER XI. 

SECONDARY CAUSES. 

The impression of sorrow and compassion already made 
upon our friend was augmented into anguish by this last out- 
burst of blind homage to the powers of human reason. He had 
a thousand arguments ready, a dowry of facts at command; he 
had words of truth and soberness — a vocabulary as varied as 
his own experience wherewithal to meet the issue, but he felt 
cramped. The hatches of this iron-clad were closed; appeals 
were useless, prayers insulting. A bold front on the same 
line being his only resource, he answered with a tinge of asper- 
ity : "Sir, the evolving germ is there. The little fellow's 
skirts are not cleared by a rift of rhetoric nor a bold assertion. 
Your argument is ad hominem. Evolution is true to the ex- 
tent of transmitting from parent to offspring. The sin of 
Adam is upon us now. Responsibility in man is the developed 
seed, the evolved germ of Infancy. 

" *Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man 
BOweth, that shall he also reap.' 

"You are sowing to the wind, and I fear the harvest. Fain 
would I give you a helping hand, but what does it avail? You 
are bound to your idols, and you will not listen to their re- 
proaches. I have several times called your attention to facts 
as indisputable as any from which you draw your inferences. 
You seem to think that a cause once set in motion never ceases 
to act. Four argumenl would tend to ignore secondary causes, 
and make man's pursuit of lin ppiuess a chase after a phantom. 
Lei me illustrate: A horse kick- you on the leg and breaks 

it. A Long train of Symptoms follow: pain, lameness, loss of 

time. Loss of money, et cetera. The first cause of all these ef- 
fects Lasted bul one second of time, a momentary contact of 

the hone's hoof with the hone of your leg. You summon a 

Burgeon. Be finds you in pain, and asks for a history. Yon 

tell him that a horse kicked you. Does that inform him of the 

nature of the lesionl You know very well that your leg is 

broken, but what does the surgeon know! Nothing yet, that 



136 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

is of any consequence for him to know. The first cause has 
ceased to act, and it is of no consequence even that it should 
be remembered. The case now stands as independent of the 
'kick as if it had never been inflicted. 

"What the surgeon needs to know is the fact that the bone is 
broken. The break, which is the effect of the kick, becomes 
at once the cause of the pain. We cannot deal with the kick, 
and if we could, it would not mend the broken bone. Respon- 
sibility in man is the broken leg we have to deal with, and it 
doesn't matter whether it is evolved from a germ or whether it 
comes at a leap. Secondary causes are the only causes we need 
to inquire into — the only causes we have any dealings with. 
Man's will may be a secondary cause, but so far as the inhab- 
itants of this earth are concerned, it is primary, and may be 
considered as the first cause of human actions. As I said to 
you once before, 'whether we can metaphysically account for it 
or not, there is a propensity in the human mind to regard each 
moral agent as a sort of original source of action, somewhat 
as we conceive of God.' The parallel is immanent in this idea, 
with the utility of the surgeon's knowledge concerning the 
broken leg. All legislation is based upon this theory, and what- 
ever is of practical import must contain the germ of truth. To 
ignore human responsibility would be to abolish civilization. 
Your strictures on the doctrine of free will, and your caricatures 
on courts of justice and legislation as being based upon human 
responsibility, are shorn of their strength by your apology for 
making them. The absurdity of your position is admitted 
when you say, 'These observations are neither made to censure 
nor to uphold the wisdom of legislation, for the exigencies of 
civil life require many factitious ordinances, which men in 
their moral and intellectual feebleness are constrained to toler- 
ate.' The exigencies of civil life include medical and surgical 
practice, in which the application of remedies for the relief of 
suffering is limited to secondary causes. ~No theory which re- 
duces its practical application to an absurdity can be true, and 
as your labored argument has ended in confusion and chaos, it 
follows that, notwithstanding the validity of your reasoning, 
and the regularity of your syllogisms, the fallacy of your con- 
clusions proves the unsoundness of your premises. Man's will 



Secondary Causes. 137 

is, therefore, free, and hunian responsibility is a fact. Take 
this upon faith as the highest act of reason, and 'beware, lest 
any man spoil you through philosophy.' " 

"Faith," replied the teacher, "assumes control when man 
passes the boundary of his own knowledge. Within the 'circle 
of the finite,' man is governed by his senses, his passions, emo- 
tions, appetites, and his reason. In the realm of darkness be- 
yond the circle, where every physical and mental trait calls a 
halt; where passion is dead, and appetite sated; where emotion 
ceases and reason herself lays down her burthen — here, in the 
great unknown — in the precincts of Eternity, faith becomes 
our guide. It is a star of light or a nebulous halo, a lantern of 
hope or blank despair; the beacon of the wise or the veil of 
the weak, as it starts from the understanding or is the product 
of hope and fear. 

"Webster says, 'Faith is belief: the assent of the mind to 
the truth of what is declared by another, resting on his author- 
ity and veracity, without other evidence.' Paul says, 'Faith 
is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
not seen.' These two authorities make no distinction between 
faith in truth and faith in error. The definitions clearly mean 
an act of the mind without regard to the ultimate consequences 
of that act. Can a man have faith in error? Can you honestly 
believe another to be pure when he is impure? Did Paulina 
(mentioned in our discussion on freedom and necessity) exer- 
cise faith, when she assented to the declaration of hoi- priest, 
that her god Anubis desired to sup and lie with her? Did 
Columbus exercise faith when he resolutely persisted in his 
Western course to discover America I 

"The faith of Paulina was the ^highest' act of reason; the 
faith of Columbus the last net of reason. The faith of Paulina 
was so high above reason thai she Lost her virtue and her happi- 
ness in reaching after the divine afflatus. The faith of Colum- 
bus being subsidiary to reason, enabled him to Immortalize his 
name, and work untold benefits to his race. Paulina accepted 
the dogmatic assertion of a priest; Columbus relied solely upon 
the deductions of In- own Logical mind. These are typical ex- 
amples. 



138 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"When a man like Beecher says lie lays aside his reason and 
accepts blindly the doctrines of the Trinity, or any other eccle- 
siastical dogma, he is in the same category with Paulina, and it 
is a mere chance if he is right. Cases of poison in food illus- 
trate faith without investigation. 

"We take the food, poison and all, with the belief that we 
shall be nourished. An act of faith per se is as liable to be 
false as true, and to believe contrary to evidence is simply to 
stultify one's self. The image in which God made man is the 
image of intelligence. It is the sheerest nonsense to talk about 
laying aside the reasoning powers in any matter whatever. 
Without reason we should be brutes, and that man who is guided 
solely by the intelligence of others is not far removed from the 
lower animals. I admit that it is the highest wisdom to be able 
to cull from the reasoning and intelligence of others the pith 
and essence of true philosophy, but to blindly follow the dicta 
of any man or any set of men, is merely to imitate, which any 
respectable ape can do. If we accept responsibility, then, we 
have to do it like Beecher does the Trinity; like Paulina did 
the machinations of her priest. Reason is against it; the last 
resource of logic is against it. All the baser passions favor it. 
Malice, revenge, hatred, all say, 'You could have acted differ- 
ently. You knew better. You deserve your punishment.' 
The prayer, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do,' is logic, love, religion. This came from the Master, 
and does not sound like responsibility." 

"My dear friend," said the traveler, "none are so blind as 
those who refuse to see. I have been disposed to think that 
you were in honest error, and that your rejection of spiritual 
truth was a species of psychical lethargy, or rather a one-sided 
view of the existing mental cosmos; but since you ignore facts 
and skim the surface, I desire to call your attention to some 
illustrations of the vast utility and paramount necessity of ex- 
ercising faith contrary to evidence. Your position would be 
tenable if the word ignorance, and all it involves, could be 
stricken from human affairs ; but until knowledge becomes uni- 
versal and infallibility the patrimony of all, you are bound to 
concede that evidence is often misleading, and blind faith be- 
comes the last as well as the 'highest' act of reason. Your 



Secondary Causes. 139 

'typical examples' can be offset with, thousands of others which 
have occurred in the experience of every one who has arrived 
at the age of maturity; and in no department can this be made 
plainer than in the art of healing. 

"An actual occurrence will serve better than any hypothetical 
cue, to show that you have missed some facts upon which your 
theory is built; and, according to your own evidence, 'If it can 
be found that one of the least factors of existence shows vio- 
lence to any theory, that theory in the nature of things must 
be false.' 

"Mrs. A. consults Dr. B. for an opinion as to her condition. 
She is forty years old, in perfect health apparently, is the 
mother of several children, the youngest of which is five years 
of age. For several months she has been enlarging as in a 
normal pregnancy. She believes that to be the case, but on 
account of her age and the age of her youngest child, as well 
as some vague forebodings, she wishes the matter set at rest 
by a medical consultation. The doctor finds that she is not 
pregnant ; that the enlargement is due to a rapidly growing 
ovarian tumor, and tells her plainly that her life depends upon 
an early operation. He insists that without the operation 
death is inevitable, and encourages her that with the operation 
the chances are overwhelmingly in favor of a permanent cure. 
The evidence to the woman's mind is altogether against the as- 
sertion of the doctor. She has every reason to believe she is 
pregnant. She is not too old; she is perfectly well; she has 
been pregnant several times before, and the symptoms are very 
similar to her former conditions. Her friends insist that the 
doctor is mistaken — they often an — and that her condition is 
due to pregnancy. Her senses, her experience, her reason, 
every fact connected with her condition, together with the dread 
of the operation and the Insistence of ber friends, strengthens 
a faith — based, not upon hope or fear, bu1 a faith based upon 
reason and experience. Paulina's faith was blind. This wo- 
man's faith was the product of all that von insist np"ii as 
necessary to a frno faith. Paulina's faith was strictly after 

Webster's definition; this woman's proved the truth of Paul's. 
Paulina lost her happiness; this woman losl ber life.* Your 



♦Tin- case occurred in the practice of tin- author. 



140 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

assertion is true that, 'an act of faith per se is as liable to be 
false as true'; but as the converse is equally true, before you 
condemn any act of faith, you must place human nature upon 
a basis of infallibility, and make man an omniscient being. 

"If this woman's faith had been modeled after Paulina's; 
if she had blindly believed her physician as Paulina did the 
priest, her life might have been saved by the same unthinking 
credence which caused Paulina's mortification." 

At this point, the schoolmaster, perceiving that many rational 
observations could be made on either side, and that the dis- 
cussion might be carried on indefinitely in a circle, trenched on 
the argumentum ad judicium by suddenly asking, "Do you be- 
lieve in the foreknowledge of God ?" 

His guest, after a little thought, said : "Bringing in the 
ideality of time, or the insight that time is only a relation in 
self-consciousness, and is, therefore, nothing in itself, or is rel- 
ative to the person's range or limitations, leaves the problem 
of foreknowledge empty as a speculative question." 

"You may be right," replied the teacher, "so far as God is 
concerned, but we poor mortals who are so limited will always 
have to separate yesterday from to-morrow by to-day. To the 
self-consciousness of God time may be only a relation, and, 
therefore, nothing in itself, but that view establishes his pre- 
science as a fact to our limitations. We cannot conceive of 
an eternal present; and as man's range of limitations is infi- 
nitely small compared with God's, time becomes a fact in our 
self-consciousness; therefore, the past and future of man is 
no more than an eternal present with God. The conclusion, 
then, forces itself that God's knowledge extends to man's fu- 
ture." 

"It is argued by some," replied the traveler, "that God's 
prescience does not extend to or include contingencies; and it 
would puzzle the greatest philosopher that ever was to give 
any tolerable account how any knowledge whatsoever can cer- 
tainly and infallibly foresee an event through uncertain and 
contingent causes." 

Teacher. — Your argument, my dear sir, continues to revolve. 
Your first answer to my query as to God's foreknowledge elim- 
inates time, and, therefore, destroys contingent causes. An 



Secondary Causes. 141 

eternal present can never tolerate contingencies; as whatever is 
casual with, man is immediate with God. Now, as it is impossi- 
ble to eliminate time from man's self-consciousness, I would 
ask if you think man knows anything of the future. 

Guest. — I should answer, no. 

Teacher. — Then, when you got out of bed this morning you 
did not know as much as you know at the preseut moment ? 

Guest. — No, I lacked just what I have learned to-day. I 
might have correctly guessed at some things that I now know, 
but as to absolute knowledge, I had none of that which I have 
acquired since rising this morning. 

Teacher. — Whatever you have thought and done to-day is a 
past fixed fact, indelibly mapped in the mind of Omniscience, 
and stamped upon your own mind so far as your memory re- 
tains it? 

Guest. — I admit this, also. 

Teacher. — Now, to make a hypothetical case, suppose it pos- 
sible to place you back to the time of rising this morning, with 
all your surroundings the same; with the whole universe and 
all it contains precisely as it was at the time you got up ; with 
the same mental and physical state as regards your personality ; 
with the same will to actuate your motives to carry out your 
actions; with the same knowledge and experience you had then 
— no more, and no less — and with every occurrence disconnected 
from yourself reenacted, would you do the same things you 
have done to-day, or would you do something else? 

Guest. — I should say, according to the teachings of philoso- 
phy, that conditions being the same, man will act precisely as 
before — i. e., conditions precisely the same, results will be the 
same. The mind cannot realize the fact that existence or 
change can take place without a cause. This is at least true 
unth respect to my own mind. I have very often made the 
attempt, and with no small painstaking; but have never been 
able to succeed at all. Supposing other minds to have the same 
general nature with my own, I conclude thai nil others will find 
the same want of success. If nothing had originally existed, 
I cannot possibly realize that anything could ever have existed. 
Causes absolutely the same, must in the same circumstances pro- 
duce absolutely the same effects. This is, I think, certainly 



142 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

self-evident, and admitted as such. An absolute want of cause 
involves an absolute sameness of an opposite 'kind; and must, 
with nearly the same evidence, continue forever. The necessity 
of causes to all the changes of being is, so far as I know, uni- 
versally admitted* 

"]STow, let me ask you if you think it would be in the range 
of possibility for you to think and act differently?" 

Here the traveler saw the pit covered with chaff — the trap 
set by this wily philosopher for his undoing; so, instead of 
answering directly, he made this reply: "If we are to regard 
man as an original source of action, somewhat as we conceive 
of God, then all metaphysical necessity becomes a shadow of 
the mind's own throwing, and in dealing with it we are chasing 
our own shadow and mistake it for substance." 

"Very true," replied the teacher, "but when you assume that 
man is an original source of action, you break out a link in 
the chain of cause and effect, and put him to some extent on an 
equality with God. If thought can start in the brain independ- 
ent of cause, it would lead to the absurd proposition that man 
himself is a self-existent being independent of cause and re- 
sponsible to no power." 

"Well ! suppose," retorted the traveler, "that pure logic would 
compel me to act as before ; what then ?" 

"I would then put this quodlibet: 

"Are you not in the same relative position upon rising each 
morning to the day following that you were this morning as 
regards to-day, i. e., are you not as ignorant of what will take 
place to-morrow, and every succeeding day of your life upon 
rising, as you were this morning of what was to take place to- 
day; and your will to control your motives; and your motives 
to direct your actions : are they not in the same category as 
to circumstance, environment, hopes, fears, desires and all the 
complicated and varied energies of life as they were this morn- 
ing, in regard to what was to take place to-day?" 

"I grant your proposition ; now, what ?" 

"If you will be in the same relative position in regard to 
the day upon rising to-morrow morning that you were this 
morning in regard to the present day, and the opportunity of 



*The italicised lines are taken from Dvvight's Theology, page 2. 



Secondary Causes. 143 

going over this day, under the same circumstances, would neces- 
sitate jour following the same track you have already traveled, 
how is it possible for you to avoid the track which is indelibly 
mapped in the mind of God for your steps to-morrow and 
every succeeding day of your life? Would you not have to 
spoil out the map which is fixed in the mind of Omniscience 
before you could select another route?" 

"I will now," said the traveler, a little impatiently, "give you 
what I conceive to be the best solution to this crotchety and un- 
accommodating subject. 

"I consider that the application of dynamic terms and rela- 
tions to the volitional life is purely fictitious and misleading. 
The illusion arises very naturally, but it is none the less illusory, 
and the objections brought are illusory. The mind understands 
other things, hut accepts itself: and it understands other things 
because they are not in mind. 

"All the existential categories find their concrete illustrations 
and meaning only in the self-conscious life of active intelli- 
gence. Taken abstractly, they are illusory and the parent of 
illusions, or they cancel themselves and vanish. 

"In the concrete region, the only test of possibility apart from 
the purely negative and formal one of noncontradiction is ex- 
perience. The categories of thought get all their meaning from 
experience, which is the only proof of their possibility. Hence. 
we have no way of telling what can or cannot be in the con- 
crete, except by appeal to life; and all flourishing of rational 
principles, laws of causation and the like, is a purely verbal 
affair without the slightest ground in rationality. This applies 
equally to our thought of our relation to God. Formal thought 
floats in the air with no font hold. \\Y cannot tell what c;in 
or cannot be; we can only inquire what is, or, at Least, what 
.-'•(•in- to he. Any other method breeds chimeras. If, then, we 
find we cannot interpret our life without admitting a measure 

of self-hood and self-direction, and, also, without rooting OUT 
life in the divine, we are perfectly U-w to do so, so far ;is -pecu- 
lation goes. 

"This genera] view I call Transcendental Empiricism. It 
i- essentially the Kantian doctrine made consistent 



144 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"I admit that to harmonize the Sovereignty of God and 
Man's freedom is a difficult matter, but somehow the two pillars 
do somewhere unite to form a beautiful arch." 

Teacher. — We will now go to bed. 



Boyhood. 145 



CHAPTER XII. 

BOYHOOD. 

The schoolmaster went to bed, but it was a long time before 
he went to sleep. The old specter — Doubt — his familiar spirit 
or demon, which had so persistently haunted his manhood, 
loomed up in the darkness and cast uncanny shadows before 
his mental vision ; obscuring the light of his philosophy, and 
shading the lamp of his reason. His fitful sleep was inter- 
rupted by foggy dreams of hesitation and perplexity. He was 
being tried in a court where the evidence was neither positive 
nor rationalistic. His condemnation depended upon the defi- 
nition of a term. Transcendental Empiricism was beyond his 
comprehension. He neither admitted nor denied his guilt. He 
made no defense; he left the verdict to the jury; that jury is 
the readers of this book. 

Rising with the lark, he went out for a walk and met his 
guest, whose ancient woe had refused him rest, and driven 
him forth for a new instalment. 

"Good morning, friend," quoth the teacher; "you rise early: 
how- about the night?" 

"As usual with me; my peace is short, my rest is ml" 

"I, also, was troubled last night; I slept badly, and was an- 
noyed with unwholesome dreams; you took me into deep water, 
and I am not refreshed. Suppose we come down to a more 
familiar use of language and talk of the boy." 

"As you li!; the reply; "I remember well my boyhood 

days, though bo Long since past." 

"If we look at the boy as i mtinued the teacher, "we 

slnill find him a savage, both by instinct and habit; up to the 
fourteenth year the human being lives for itself; its instincts 
are for the gratification of it- present wants, and those wants 
are, for the mosl part, connected with its vegetative develop- 
ment, [f the boy is healthy, his appetite for eating is almoel 
insatiable, and his power for mischief is in proportion to his 
Btrength. He is cruel, thoughtless and renal He delights in 
punishing the helpless and torturing the weak. He will strip 

10 



146 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

a bird of its feathers and chop its legs off. He will stick a 
cork on its beak and turn it loose. He will pull off the legs 
of flies and gloat over their helplessness. He will put a live 
coal of fire on a turtle's back to see him run, and he will feed 
shot to a frog till it can't hop. He will annoy domestic ani- 
mals from pure 'cussedness,' and if by chance a little just retri- 
bution befalls him, he will scream at the top of his voice and 
run to his mother. He is essentially a coward. While he 
revels in tyranny, he is careful never to attack the strong. One 
boy alone never was known to storm a hornet's nest. He will 
band together, and with the tactics of a veteran, make sallies 
and retreats. His greatest delight in this warfare is that the 
other boy may get stung. He will take the risk himself with 
the hope of hearing the other boy howl. This is the savage in 
him. It shows itself in his treatment of his playmates, on 
whom he is more or less dependent for his selfish pleasures. 
To them he is rarely kind, never just. This spirit hangs on 
through life, and is only softened by experience, education and 
religion. It is nothing more than the spirit of resistance 
which makes it possible to live in a world like this. All the 
teaching and all the preaching have not eradicated it from the 
human heart, and probably never will. Christianity has been 
preaching against it for two thousand years ; Buddhism as stren- 
uously opposes it, and Confucius laid down a golden rule for 
human conduct : 

" 'What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to 
others.' But the boy has no use for catholic or ethical rules. 
He lives for self, and is on the defensive when not the ag- 
gressor. Teachers and humanitarians would probably do bet- 
ter work by directing, rather than attempting to suppress this 
inborn principle. 

"Anywhere from five to twelve years of age, the boy is a 
brute. He is not only brutish; he is absolutely bestial. He 
will do things the remembrance of which will make him shudder 
after maturity. If vigorous and healthy, his curiosity will 
drive him into measures which bring tears to his mother's eyes 
and sadness to her heart. Work he will not, except under com- 
pulsion, and why? Because he is unfit for work and cannot 
see the need for it. His business is to eat and to grow and to 



Boyhood. 147 

get into mischief. Compel him to work and you dwarf his in- 
tellect and stunt his body. Send him to school, and but for 
the chance to play pranks on his deskrnate, to hollo and run 
when playtime comes, to cheat the teacher and domineer it 
over some smaller boy, he had as soon be in limbo. He will 
not study, simply because he can't. He is too full of blood, 
too full of mischief, too full of fun, too full of the boy. There 
is nothing of the saint in him; nothing of the man, but this is 
the boy out of which the real man comes. The good boy makes 
a sorry man, and oftentimes a bad one. The studious boy 
seldom gets an education, and when he does his body is dwarfed 
and his spirit broken. The real boy, that is father to the true 
man, has no time for study, no time to be good, no time to keep 
clean even, no time to obey his parents or teachers. His whole 
time is occupied in growing and cultivating the accessories to 
growth. His mind is as active as it ever will be, but it is not 
on the great problems of life. His mental scope is limited to 
his experience, stimulated by his rapid strides from ignorance 
to knowledge, and carried forward by the panoramic view of 
life as it is presented to his consciousness day in and day out. 
His imagination leads him into the most weird and fallacious 
conceptions of life and the universe. He forms the most fan- 
tastic theories of the causes of every observed effect, and he will 
ask questions that will puzzle the greatest philosopher. These 
reminiscences occupy but little of his time, but they obtrude in 
his Leisure moments and especially after listening to the con- 
versation of his elders. If his bump of acquisitiveness La Largely 
developed, he will work for money, bnt lie always wants a big 
price. It" hi- mechanical bent is in the ascendency, he will 
work with tools and build mills, flying-jennies and hand-carts. 
or railroads down the -dopes of hills. It is astonishing bow 
faithfully and persistently the mechanical mind will drive the 
boy to these exercises. If" interrupted in these pursuits by ill- 
advised parents, Ik- will swear by all that is good 01 had that 

when ho gets grown ho will build a- many mill-, carts and fly- 

ing-jenniee as he wan'-. The determination fades away as he 

grows older, and he never knOWS how nor when it left him. 

If he is a sort of milksop with no Btrong proclivities, he will 

be easily led, and will work for another boy, hut never for 



148 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

himself. If naturally sympathetic and kind-hearted, with weak 
thinking powers, under the stimulus of praise he will wait on 
his mother, build fires and help her cook. But when a man, 
the same boy will let her starve and — be sorry for her. The 
mother always loves this boy. He is the prodigal son, and the 
fatted calf is always ready for a feast. He is so good and so 
helpless and so worthless that the mother's heart yearns toward 
him to her last breath. The bad (but not mean) boy, when 
a man, will feed and clothe his mother and make her com- 
fortable, but she never loves him. Her heart will always go 
out to the prodigal. She will fear and respect her manly son, 
but way down, deep, in the bottom of her soul, is a warm nest, 
and hovering wings for the unlicked cub. This, possibly, is a 
type of the great enigma of Christian eclecticism. These types 
are not intended to represent the whole of humanity. There are 
remarkable exceptions — geniuses, following no law, and coming 
under no class. There are a few men and women who have lived 
to maturity, and even old age, whose infancy and childhood were 
as remarkable as their manhood and womanhood ; whose brains 
and bodies seem to have been cast in superior moulds. But, as a 
rule, intellectual prodigies die young. The most remarkable 
instance on record is a child born at Lubeck, February 6, 1721, 
and died there, June 27, 1725, after having displayed the most 
amazing proofs of intellectual powers. He could talk at ten 
months old, and had scarcely completed his first year when he 
already knew and recited the principal facts contained in the 
five books of Moses, with a number of verses on the creation : 
at thirteen months he knew the history of the Old Testament; 
and the ISTew, at fourteen ; in his thirtieth month, the history of 
the nations of antiquity, geography, anatomy, the use of maps, 
and nearly 5,000 Latin words. Before the end of his third year 
he was well acquainted with the history of Denmark, and the 
genealogy of the crowned heads of Europe; in his fourth year 
he had learned the doctrines of divinity, with their proofs from 
the Bible ; ecclesiastical history ; the institutes ; 200 hymns, with 
their tunes; 80 psalms; entire chapters of the Old and New Tes- 
taments; 1,500 verses and sentences from ancient Latin classics; 
almost the whole Orbis Pictus of Comenius, whence he had 
derived all his knowledge of the Latin language ; arithmetic ; his- 



Boyhood. 149 

toiy of the European empires and kingdoms ; could point out, in 
the maps, whatever place he was asked for or passed by in his 
journeys; and recited all the ancient and modern historical 
anecdotes relating to it. His stupendous memory caught and 
retained every word he was told; his ever active imagination 
used whatever he heard or saw instantly to apply some ex- 
ample or sentence from the Bible, geography, profane or ec- 
clesiastical history, the Orbis Pictus, or from ancient classics. 
At the court of Denmark he delivered twelve speeches without 
once faltering, and underwent public examination on a variety 
of subjects, especially the history of Denmark. He spoke Ger- 
man, Latin, French, and low Dutch, and was exceedingly good- 
natured, and well-behaved, but of a most tender and delicate 
bodily constitution; never ate any solid food, but chiefly sub- 
sisted on nurse's milk, not being weaned till within a very few 
months of his death, at which time he was not quite four 
years old. There is a dissertation on this, published by M. 
Martini, at Lubeck, 1730, where the author attempts to assign 
natural causes for the astonishing capacity of this great man 
in embryo, who was just shown to the world and snatched 
away. 



150 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK XIII. 

CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

"To the philosopher, who would pry into the secrets of na- 
ture, and endeavor to learn something of himself and his fel- 
low-man, the first issue that presents itself is an interrogatory : 

"Why is the boy just what he is ? 

"A satisfactory answer to this question would solve the 
enigma of life, and settle at once and forever the wrangles and 
disputes of ages. Whoever has studied critically the philoso- 
phy of cause and effect, or whoever believes that there are 
causes for what is, what has been, and what is to be — in other 
words, whoever denies that things happen by chance, and admits 
that the universe is governed by law, must form in his own 
mind a chain, the last link of which corresponds to the last ob- 
served effect. Start with the last link and count back, link by 
link, through the division made by Aristotle, of material, for- 
mal, efficient and final causes, and you can never stop until you 
get to the first cause of everything. This chain starting with 
the Great First Cause reaches down to the last link, and 
branches out in directions illimitable to the last outgrowth of 
cause, and through the haphazard, chance-medley revolutions 
of the great wheel of Fortune. It includes the material and 
the immaterial, the spiritual and the corporeal. Thought it- 
self is fettered by this chain, and motive and act are embraced 
in its coil. Break out a link and that would sever the conse- 
quent from God — and that is inconceivable. Somewhere along 
this chain of links the boy's existence begins. Go back, and 
you can never stop short of the first cause, which is God. Go 
forward, and the chain is broken only at death, if then. The 
backward links may be appropriately named life, heredity, in- 
tellect, physique, circumstance of birth, sex and nationality. 
The forward links include environment, association, riches and 
poverty, education, health and disease, will, motive and action. 
The links alternately represent cause and effect; the first link 
being the cause of the second; the second is now only an effect. 
but it immediately becomes the cause of the third, and so on 
to the end of the chain. One of the simplest and most familiar 



Cause and Effect 151 

examples of cause and effect is a shadow cast on a wall. The 
shadow is the effect of two causes which are at once apparent, 
viz., the opaque object and the light. This shadow is a type, 
so far as its backward movement is concerned, of every effect 
that has ever existed since cause first began to operate. It 
has within itself no power to remove, modify or change the cause 
or causes which produced it, and, therefore, it is a shadow from 
necessity. It does not matter about its being a phenomenon. 
The chain frequently ends with phenomena, but phenomena 
never break out a link. Substance, so far as retroactive power 
is concerned, is in the same helpless position as phenomena. 
.V piece of furniture which is the effect of all the causes laid 
down by Aristotle, is as helpless toward any or all of the 
causes that aided in its construction as the shadow on the wall. 
A railroad, a steamboat, a house, a suit of clothes is in the 
same position in regard to the causes which produced it. Ar- 
gument seems to be perfect with all minds, so long as cause and 
effect are applied to the brute, the vegetable, and the material 
creation ; but the moment you touch man and get to a certain 
point in his make-up, a halt is called and a danger-signal is 
raised. Right here is the commencement of strife, war, and 
bloodshed. Right here most of the miseries of life begin, and 
right here man lays aside his reason. This is the point where 
Egotheism usurps the power of God. This is where man be- 
gins to love himself and hate his neighbor. This is the altar 
at which the Pharisee offers his sacrifice, and thanks himself 
thai he is not as other men. This is what makes the Catholic 
hate the Protestant, and this is whal split protestantism into a 
thousand Beets. Right here is the origin of evil. Mao clothes 
himself with the 'foolishness of GodV and says, 'Look a1 me; 
behold, I am wii h<mt cause ; I am fn 

"Abrogate the law of cause and effect as applied to motive. 
will, thought, and act, and Egotheism becomes the true philoso- 
phy of life -the Natural and Revealed religion of man. [f 
thought originates de novo in the brain of man, if motive and 
will have do cause back of mind itself, then the acts of man 
form the second link in the chain, and give as a polytheism 
which rationally accounts for the disordered state of human 
ity. Upon tin's idea men act while professing to believe in 



152 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

God, 'but they change the truth of God into a lie, and worship 
and serve the creature rather than the Creator.' Upon this idea 
man has made a hell for his neighbor, and a heaven for himself. 
Upon this idea war is declared and blood' is shed. This false 
and sinful notion takes all the responsibility from me and places 
it upon you. It makes us blame the boy for being rude and 
thoughtless, and makes us hate the man for thinking and acting 
differently from ourselves. It makes hypocrites of us all, both 
in life and religion. The mission of Christ was to correct this 
error, and save us from our sins; but his teachings were re- 
pudiated then, and are perverted now. His last prayer was a 
lamentation for our ignorance: 

" 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' 
" 'The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but 
Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood.' 

"Now, why is this? The answer is plain. Reason has ab- 
dicated her throne, and passion reigns. Man has voted out 
logic, and fallen in love with himself. Self-deification is at 
the root and bottom of his philosophy, and being self-made, 
he worships his Maker. How easy it would be to cultivate and 
practice the Christian virtues if men would reason correctly. 
Charity would flow from one to another, and hatred would for- 
sake the human heart. The golden rule would be the guide for 
all, and strife would cease. If we could recognize that motive 
is the effect of anterior causes over which it has no control, 
that will is not a self-existent entity, and that action is only a 
link in the chain of cause and effect, we would cease to blame 
men for what they do, and a rational legislation would take 
the place of our present statutes. Arbitration would take the 
place of war, compromise would shut up the courts of law, and 
mild coercion would be the means of reforming the thoughtless. 
The boy would be seen as he is, and not as the older one thinks 
he ought to be; the rod would be laid aside and the precepts 
of Jesus substituted for the savagery of Solomon. If the boy 
was not just what he is, there would be no place on earth for 
him. If God had only wanted men, He would have made 
them of dust as He did the first man, and there would have 
been no use for women ; but God wanted boys, and He wanted 



Cause and Effect. 153 

them just as they are, or He would have had them different. 
The boy is all right if he could be let alone and have good ex- 
amples set by his elders. But so long as he is ill-treated, and 
looked upon as an encumbrance, his evil propensities will re- 
main in the ascendency. Cause and effect operate here, the 
same as they do in the various departments of industry. Culti- 
vate the boy as you would a crop, and if the seed is good, and 
the soil productive, you will harvest a man. But the seed is of 
more importance than the cultivation, for it is not by virtue 
of education so much as by virtue of inheritance that he is 
brave or timid, generous or selfish, prudent or reckless, boastful 
or modest, quick or placid of temper. Common observation has 
always recognized, and has expressed in various popular say- 
ings in all languages, the vital influence of breed upon char- 
acter, and the impossibility of eradicating nature. It is of 
more importance to know what a man's father or mother was 
than what his schoolmaster was. Many an experience in life 
teaches the individual who has had the blessing of a good 
parentage how incalculable is his debt. When compelled to 
act at critical moments, or under difficult and trying circum- 
stances to which he was not consciously equal, or under great 
temptation to wrong or in any other case in which his art has 
failed him, he shall have had cause to bless the nature which 
he has inherited, to give thanks for the reserve force of a 
sound and vigorous character which his parents have endowed 
him with, and which has stood him in good stead and inspired 
him, ;is his Leisurely consideration proves, to do rightly when 
he knew not whal he was doing. The individual's nature is 
beneath his art; if sound, it will come to hia rescue when 
culture fails him; if unsound, it will overthrow him in the 
hour of trial in Bpite of culture. Better than all that lia< I 

taught him by hia pastors and masters, it will enable him t<> 
meet his la-t fate with becoming dignity in the hour "t death 
and in the day of judgment." 

This di8COUr8e had SO absorbed the attention of the two men 
that their long walk had Unconsciously terminated just as the 

old philosopher Bpoke tie- lasl sentence. They were hack at 
the house and breakfast was ready. The traveler, notwithstand- 
ing his long and varied experience in life, and for all hia i 



154 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

ciations with the philosophers and theologians of the different 
schools, had caught an idea from this old man which even to 
him was new. The old question of moral evil had perplexed 
him as it had perplexed others. He was unwilling to place the 
authorship of sin upon God, and the devil was only a shifty 
substitute. He admitted that the image in which God had made 
man was the image of intelligence, but he had been taught 
that, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men," and he 
doubted the good of human reason. But here was an explana- 
tion of the origin of evil that would take it off from God, and 
shift it even from the shoulders of the devil. The twisting of 
a link in the chain of cause and effect had given it a sort of 
antithetical origin, and left it uncertain as to whose door the 
blame should be laid. The abdication of Eeason left the entry 
unguarded, and as Passion donned the purple gown, she shook 
from her skirts the elements of discord, which came together 
by Cosmical affinity, and formed the hydra-headed Cabinet, 
whose voice is so often heard in the councils of men. He felt 
a good deal like the schoolmaster felt at the end of the discus- 
sion on Responsibility. He was willing to leave the verdict to 
the jury without further comment. 

After breakfast the schoolmaster proposed a walk to the 
depot, for the mail. This suited the itinerant, as he had begun 
to feel very painfully the old ringing noise which was becoming 
intolerable from too much idleness. What was talked about on 
this trip is recorded in the next chapter. 



From Boyhood to Manhood. 155 



CHAPTER XIV. 

FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD. 

"Boyhood," began the teacher, after they had well gotten on 
the road, "had run its cycle of age ere youth is born. Old age 
here is more painful, more regrettable than the old age of man- 
hood, for the death of boyhood comes when all the faculties of 
our being are in the ascendency, and the pain is in proportion 
to the capacity to feel. Youth is bom upon the funeral pyre 
of boyhood, and as the embers die and the ashes are scattered. 
the callow graft is left to the merciless storms of inexperience. 
Youth regrets boyhood the more on account of its solitariness. 
He can no longer enjoy the society of boys, and men don't want 
him. It is the transition stage of life where every faculty re- 
volts at the tyranny of fate. The schoolroom and the work- 
shop are the only two places that give him a welcome. Now is 
the time for him to lay the foundation of a solid education ; 
but he still has to grow, and the warfare between inclination 
and duty is something fearful. The seeds of passion sprout. 
and the rank growth threatens the crop with destruction. Am- 
bition natters and despondency paralyzes; hope dazzles the 
eye with a beautiful mirage and fear dispels it; languor fights 
a terrific battle with industry, and inexperience lays mares in 
his evm-y-day path. 

"Youth is the least satisfactory period of human life — the 
period when the human being is of no use to the world, no use 
to In- friends, and of little use to himself. He is in the way of 
everybody, an expense i»> his parents and a menace t<> Bociety. 
lie is on top of ilie fence with himself, and whether he falls 
t<» the good or bad side depends both upon inheritance and 
surroundings. Vanity m;ike< him confident, but ignorance 
makes him inefficient. He would do the work of ;i man, bu1 be 
can find no employer. Wha1 lie is filial to do he does not 
relish, and what lie desires to do needs an older head. Con- 
stant chiding makes him morbid and suicide grows into a 
vision of relief, [ndiscriminate praise is ao more to !><■ com- 
mended than too much fault-finding. It is here that proper 
direction is of incalculable value t<> the future man. By con- 



156 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

stantly blaming some actions and praising others in their chil- 
dren, parents are able to so form their characters that, apart 
from any reflection, these shall in after life be attended with a 
certain pleasure; those, on the other hand, with a certain pain. 
Naines are associated with certain characteristics from impres- 
sions made on the minds of the young by their parents speaking 
of Mr. A. as a drunkard, or Mr. B. as a rogue, or Mr. C. as 
a common man, or Mr. D. as a fine gentleman. These im- 
pressions cling to the individual in after years, so that when- 
ever he hears the name the character is vividly reproduced in 
his mind. The Romish Church thoroughly understood this 
impressionable period of life when she said, 'Give me the child 
until it is seven years old, and you may have it ever afterward.' 
"Youth being the transition stage between a purely vegeta- 
tive existence and that of maturity, is beset with more dangers, 
possibly, than any other period of life. With every faculty 
of the mind and every bodily organ, as it were, in a race for 
the supremacy of growth; with no power to curb the one or di- 
rect the other; without knowledge, without experience; with 
no implements to prune the over-luxuriant, and no fertilizer to 
stimulate the backward ; with bodily passions and mental traits, 
growing from seeds unsifted and unselected, sown upon soil 
unprepared, and sterile or fertile by haps, the youth is at the 
mercy of leaven over which he has no control; and unless he 
can be directed by wiser and more experienced heads, he will 
be swerved in the direction of the strongest and most vigorous 
elements of his nature. Many a youth is so evenly balanced 
that he may be turned to the good or bad by advice and admoni- 
tions from parents, teachers, and friends, according to their 
insight into his stronger or weaker mental and physical endow- 
ments. Others are so aslant from inherited tendencies that 
precept and example make no impression. Sidewise they go, 
and ajee they run their race. For these people there is no 
remedy. They make up the tramps, the vagabonds and jail- 
birds of every country. Dungeons, penitentiaries, and work- 
houses are for their use alone. Half the statutes of every civil- 
ized land are in force because of this class, and despite of 
penalties, the crop grows and the harvest becomes more plenti- 
ful. These form the classes dangereuses of large towns, who 



From Boyhood to Manhood. 157 

are bom and bred in squalor and iniquity, and never have a 
chance afforded them to rise out of it. Their intellect and 
moral sense are seldom sufficiently developed to afford them the 
compensation these bring to others. The apparently hopeless, 
objectless, noxious existence of these beings, and their fearful 
power of mischief and of multiplication, have always been and 
still remain to me, 'God's most disturbing mystery.' 

"About the time of puberty, one particular organic element 
begins to develop, whose influence may be traced into the last 
ramification of human motive. Sex, which in infancy and 
childhood is only a germ, now begins to play a role, that, for 
influence over mankind, both for good and evil, has no counter- 
part in nature. All other passions that agitate the human 
breast are in their combined effects far less powerful than love, 
which inflames the senses and fools the understanding. On the 
one hand, we gratefully glorify love as the source of the most 
splendid creations of art; of the noblest productions of poetry, 
of plastic art and of music; we reverence in it the most power- 
ful factor of human civilization, the basis of family life, and, 
consequently, of the development of the State. On the other 
hand, we fear in it the devouring flame which drives the unfor- 
tunate to ruin, and which has caused more misery, vice, and 
crime than all the other evils of .the human race taken together. 

"The overmastering passion of love has surrounding it a 
strange and mystic glamour; it is the juggling instinct of uni- 
versal nature thrilling through man's nature, and is truly an en- 
chantment ; the individual is possessed by it, being transformed 
oul of the prosaic region of facts into a sort of ecstasy. It 
is nature's way of inveigling man into the propagation of bis 
kind, and so strives by propagating itself through time to cheat 
death. 

"If bent on getting an education or learning a useful tn 
the youth cannol be swerved from the duty line by the tempta- 
tions of the flesh, or the Biren songs of imagination; ye1 the 
most determined and strong-minded young man will be modified 
in bis views and influenced in bis actions by the growth of those 
passions which aature implanted and time is developing. Greed 
can no more be eradicated from the naturally covetous than 
care-taking can be imbued into the naturally wasteful. 



158 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"Josephus tells us that the first man born upon the earth 
was 'wholly intent upon getting.' His brother, being less am- 
bitious and more inclined to take life easy, preferred the shade 
to sunshine and sweat. The difference between the two, even 
now, is said to be only sixpence, and the lazy one oftener gets 
it. This travesty upon industry is the sorry outcome of that 
philosophy which ignores Cause and panders to the baser pas- 
sions of human nature. The story of the Prodigal Son is a 
remonstrant against effort, as the doctrine of Repentance is an 
encouragement to sin. 

"When St. Patrick preached the Gospel on Tarah Hill to 
Leoghaire, the Irish King, the Druids and wise men of Ireland 
shook their heads. 'Why,' asked the King, 'does what the cleric 
preaches seem so dangerous to you?' 

" 'Because,' was the answer, 'he preaches repentance, and the 
law of repentance is such that a man shall say, "I may commit 
a thousand crimes, and if I repent I shall be forgiven, and it 
will be no worse with me ; therefore, I will continue to sin." : 

"The Druids argued logically, and the same reasoning infests 
the church at the present day. An old reprobate, of good 
standing in the church, being reprimanded for his flagrant im- 
morality, hooted at the idea, and said, 'That's nothing; I have 
the faith.' And, so it is, when a religious sentiment panders 
to the baser passions of men, we have an additional cause, or 
a stronger link forged into the chain for the propagation of 
crime." 

At this point the traveler raised an objection. He inter- 
rupted the schoolmaster in his discourse by saying: 

"When Judas saw that Christ was condemned, it is said of 
him that he repented of what he had done. He was mightily 
afflicted in his mind about it, and wished it had not been done. 
But his repentance arises from a fear of the punishment de- 
nounced against sin, and is not accompanied with hatred of sin ; 
as when a malefactor suffers for his crimes, he reflects upon his 
actions with sorrow, but this not being a sacred act, but pro- 
ceeding from a violent principle, is consistent with as great a 
love to sin as he had before, and may be entirely terminated on 



From Boyhood to Manhood. 159 

himself; lie may be sorry for his crimes, as they have exposed 
him to punishment, and yet not be grieved that thereby he has 
offended God. 

"This is legal repentance. 

"For that saving grace wrought in the soul by the Spirit of 
God, whereby a sinner is made to see and be sensible of his sin, 
is grieved and humbled before God on account of it, not so much 
for the punishment to which sin has made him liable, as that 
thereby God is dishonored and offended, his laAvs violated, and 
his own soul polluted and denied ; and this grief arises from love 
to God, and is accompanied with a hatred to sin, a love of holi- 
ness, and a fixed resolution to forsake sin, and an expectation 
of favor and forgiveness through the merits of Christ. This is 
evangelical or gospel repentance. And this is the repentance 
preached by St. Patrick on Tarah Hill — repentance to reforma- 
tion." 

"Ah !" exclaimed the teacher, "repentance to reformation ! If 
reformation is the essential outcome of true, or gospel repent- 
ance, then the word repentance might well be stricken from 
the text, and reformation put in its place; but does the sacred 
writer really mean reformation, when he exhorts to repent- 
ance? If so, then, the thief on the Cross must have made an 
exception, as he had no opportunity to reform." 

"Xo doubt," replied the traveler, "but the thief, had he had 
the opportunity, would have reformed, as the Savior recog- 
nized his as evangelical repentance; but when Jeremiah was 
pleading the cause of his people, God said to him : 

"'Thou hasl forsaken inc. thou arl gone backward; therefore will 
I stretch out my band against thee, and destroy thee; i am weary 
with repenting. 1 

"Thai kind of repentance is wearisome now, and God has no 
mote patience \\ itli Li than be bad in the days of Jeremiah. 
Whoever relies upon thai will be left, whether be stands well 
in the church or not. Gospel repentance is accompanied by 
regeneration, and where a man Loved Bin before, be dow Loathes 
and bates it ! 'for godly Borrow worketh repentance to salva- 
tion no1 to be repented of: bu1 the Borrow of the world worketh 
death.' " 



160 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

Teacher. — "Your argument is logical and your illustrations 
apt, but when you presume to say the thief would have reformed 
had the chance been given him, you pass from rational argu- 
ment to casuistry. The conscience of the thief was only known 
to himself, and the promise made by the Savior simply shows 
his extreme benevolence and pity for a fellow-sufferer. The 
case of Judas, to a court of inquiry, would seem much nearer 
gospel repentance than that of the thief. Judas was not only 
sorry for his crime, but made what restitution he was able to," 
by returning the silver pieces; and still, not having his con- 
science satisfied, brooded over his sin until remorse drove him 
to suicide. You may call 'this a cowardly act ; you may repro- 
bate the sinner, and withdraw from him all sympathy ; you may 
loathe and despise, execrate and condemn; you may call to 
mind all the horrors of Dante's Inferno, and implore the de- 
stroying Angel for additions to this maelstrom of sin, and you 
may consign the soul of Judas to this pit, but you must re- 
member that his act was by the 'determinate counsel and 

FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD.' " 

"My dear friend," replied the traveler, "I am not here to 
pass sentence upon a fellow-sinner. Judas, like the rest of 
us, is in the hands of God, and whatever He does is right. In 
one sense I have the spirit of Job: 'Though He slay me, yet 
will I trust in Him,' but I have not the consciousness of being 
upright like Job; I cannot maintain mine own ways before 
him ; rather, like the publican, I continually cry, 'God be merci- 
ful to me, a sinner.' I was only trying to make plain the 
difference between gospel and legal repentance — the saving 
power of the one and the inefficiency of the other. Christ 
knew the heart of the thief, or he never would have made him 
the promise." 

They had now reached the post-office, and after securing the 
mail and taking a short rest, they retraced their steps toward 
home. The schoolmaster's mind was still on the philosophy of 
human nature, and as they leisurely walked back, the conversa- 
tion was confined to man in his maturity. This being the time 
when the human being, if ever, is free and responsible, will 
be minutely considered in the next chapter. 



Manhood. 161 



CHAPTER XV. 

MAX HOOD. 

The stroll toward home was commenced in silence. The 
schoolmaster was thinking, and his companion was enjoying the 
relief ever attendant upon motion. The discussion of metaphy- 
sical subtilties was of less consequence to the wayfarer than 
procuring relief from his infirmity. Years ago he had waded 
through the philosophies of all creeds; had steeped his mind 
with every thought, from savage to sage; had studied the 
"hoodoo" of Africa, and the metaphysics of Calvin; had dwelt 
in the penetralia mentis of Kant, and slept on the couch of 
Transcendentalism. He was surfeited with thought, and had 
rejected all human philosophies. His experience outweighed 
his reason. The little "white stone" and the new name written 
therein was the summum bonum of all things to him; yet he 
was patient, tolerant, and ever ready to accommodate, either 
in word or deed. He pitied the schoolmaster from the bottom 
of his soul, and continually prayed that the Spirit might give 
liini the "name which no man knoweth saving he that receiv- 
ed it." 

At last the silence was broken; the teacher spoke as if to him- 
self, and with a loud voice, exclaimed, "Manhood! the flower, 
the fruit, the culmination of human life ! The output of 
the Triune Godhead in council! What a grand theme is man! 
Wha1 a mystery to himself, what, a puzzle to his Maker] The 
image of God himself; no wonder he is incomprehensible! Let 
us analyze, if" we can, this masterpiece of Creation. 

"The child, the boy, the youth are the rungs of the [adder 
to manhood — to manhood, the enigma, the riddle, the puzzh — 
the Eyrcaniau wood of human philosophy. We observe the 
form, we aee t be body, we come in contact with t he material t he 
flesh; hut we think the man the Ego. We look ;it the hand, 
we handle the foot, we observe the eye, the car, the Dose, the 
features; we disseel and analyze the arteries, the veins, the 
nerves, and the organs of digestion; we l<»<>k :n the bearl and 
note its wonderful work, its powm-, it- never ceasing pulsation; 

11 



162 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

we understand how, and why, the lungs take in and throw out 
air; we note the reproductive organs, and we are amazed and 
bewildered at their function. We then go into the inner Ar- 
canum of life, the throne-room of the Ego — the Holy of Holies, 
where the spirit dwells, and we find it vacant. 

"The veil of the temple has been torn and the Shechinah is 
no longer there. The man is gone back to his Father's house, 
and there we can behold him only with the eye of faith. 

"But, first, let us endeavor to find out in what part of this 
house of flesh the Ego made its special abode. 

"On another occasion you said, 'The mind understands 
other things, hut accepts itself — as good as to say, the mind 
cannot investigate itself. I am not ready to agree to such an 
assertion, and rather think that, by excluding certain por- 
tions of the body, and by a proper introspection, we may, at 
least, locate the particular organ with which the Ego is most 
intimately connected. We look at the foot, and at once recog- 
nize its particular function. We examine the hand, and we find 
it a tool, an implement for executing the commands of the mind. 
We view the heart, and find it a double-acting compound pump 
for the blood; the arteries and veins are the irrigating canals 
of the body, and the intestinal tract is the great river of com- 
merce, as it were, to bring in supplies, and rid the body of 
waste material. The liver is an immense chemical and physi- 
ological laboratory, where antiseptics are prepared and poison- 
ous germs are destroyed. The whole body below the head is 
a material organization, and governed entirety in its various 
functions by physical laws. Let the mind of any man think of 
its habitation, and see if it will locate it in the foot, hand, heart, 
liver, or intestinal canal. Think of your own Ego, and ask 
yourself where it is. Interrogate any functioning organ above 
the Adam's apple, and see if you can analyze the product. The 
product of the -liver is bile; that of the kidneys, urine; that of 
the stomach, digestive juices. All these products can be seen, 
handled, and reduced to their component elements ; but what 
of sight, sound, smelling, and tasting? Can they be put in a 
crucible and analyzed, or into a retort and distilled into some- 
thing else? Can you find an element of matter in sound, or a 
ponderable molecule in sight? Is it possible to convert one 



Manhood. 163 

odor into another by chemical reaction? Can salt be made to 
taste like sugar by manipulation? It is a fact that a pleasant 
odor can be changed into a vile one by imagination, and vice 
versa: but what is imagination? 

"In the head we come in contact with something besides 
matter. Matter alone cannot produce sight, sound, taste, or 
smell. Sensation is not an attribute of matter; neither is 
thought. It is believed that the ultimate particles, the atoms 
of matter, are eternally in motion ; but is motion an attribute of 
matter? There is no evidence of that fact. Then, what shall 
we do ? Give up and stop investigation ? No, we should seek 
for truth, and seek it rationally from the evidence we have. 
Socrates taught us exclusion; Bacon, induction. The human 
mind is not limited in its power of inquiry. Start with what 
we know, and reason logically, and if we do not find truth, it 
is nowhere to be found. 

"In brain matter we have a substance differing from all 
other combinations of matter. The chemist has almost been 
baffled in his attempts to analyze this substance. Its constitu- 
ents are of a very complex character, easily undergoing de- 
composition, and, being compounded largely of carbon and 
hydrogen, have a high oxidation value. That waste and re- 
pair, from functional activity, go on in the brain, as in other 
organs, is a demonstrable fact. That mind and brain are in- 
timately connected is no longer questioned; but as cause and 
effect, is a very doubtful proposition. We cannot affirm that 
the mind is a secretion of the brain, as bile is a secretion of the 
liver, neither can we say that brain is the efficient cause of 
mind. Bile and liver are both material substances, and both 
may be reduced to their component elements. Brain-substance 
i- matter in combination, extremely complex and obscure, bul 
nothing more than matter. Is mind matter? If bo, lit'- La mat- 
ter, and there Is do God. The mind of man will ool agree i<> 
this. That there are ;it least two different substances com- 
posing this universe is a self-evident proposition matter and 
spirit, intimately associated, bu1 never forming ;• combination. 
We recognize matter in its infinite combinations, bul spirit 

Lg held to he an uncomponnded essence; and while il Cannot 

he disintegrated into elementary forms, it manifests itself in 



164 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

ways as innumerable as that of matter. What is life, but 
spirit operating through matter? The myriad forms of life 
alone would compare numerically with the different combina- 
tions of matter; and then the infinite number of manifestations 
resulting from life would swell the aggregate to all the chemical 
unions in the universe. Natural philosophers have held that 
it is not improbable that all the infinitely varied forms of 
matter may be, and probably are, nothing more than the in- 
finite variations of one primordial element. This idea is not 
so ill-founded as might appear from our present knowledge of 
chemistry. The high temperatures developed by the electrical 
furnace and the intense cold made manifest by liquefying air 
are working revolutions in chemistry not dreamed of a few 
years ago ; and the alchemist's dream of the transmutation of 
metals may yet be more than a dream. 

"If there is a point in natural philosophy which may be 
regarded as finally settled, it is the imperishability of the chem- 
ical elements and the everlasting duration of force. This means 
that with all the changes going on in the universe there is no 
destruction — no annihilation. Matter cannot be stricken from 
existence, neither can force. The mind of man, the life of ani- 
mals and plants, the movements of the amoebss, the oscillations 
of the ultimate atoms of matter, are all forces which never 
cease to exist, and which it is impossible to destroy. The in- 
numerable combinations and manifestations of matter are the 
output of the one primordial element; and so the infinite vari- 
ations of force proceed from the One Great Force, or Spirit, 
which is God. It is held that matter itself is an emanation 
from God, or that God created matter out of nothing; but 
this idea seems to me to be out of sympathy with what we 
know of the universe, and the Power that rules it. 'In the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' This first 
sentence of the sacred writer conveys no intelligent conception 
to the reader, but rather opens the way for unanswerable ques- 
tioning. If there was a beginning, there was a time before 
the beginning. It is impossible that time could have had a 
beginning. Now, if God and matter had a beginning, before 
this beginning there was nothing but time. Time, in an ab- 
stract sense, is nothing; therefore, if God and matter had a 



Manhood. 165 

beginning, before they began to be there was nothing. Out of 
nothing, nothing can come; therefore, there never was a time 
when God, at least, did not exist. If there ever was a time 
when matter did not exist, during that time God was idle, for 
he works only through matter ; in fact, there is nothing else 
through which he can work. To say God ever spent his time in 
idleness is an assumption of man's ignorance; therefore, the 
only rational conclusion is that God and matter are both self- 
existent, coexistent, and eternal. Now, if God and matter 
have both existed from all eternity, there clearly was a time 
when God began to create the universe — not out of nothing, 
but out of matter coexisting with himself : and that time may 
reasonably be spoken of as the 'beginning' in Genesis. To ask 
when the time of that 'beginning' was is an idle question, but 
it is self-evident that the workman and the material must 
exist before the mechanism can commence. The conclusion, 
then, is that God and matter have both existed from all eternity, 
and that God, by his infinite power and knowledge, has fash- 
ioned the universe and all it contains just as he wanted it, and 
to suit himself. 

"Amongst the various combinations of matter he has seen fit 
to arrange, we find the especial combination known as brain- 
substance. This substance is found in the skulls of all ani- 
mals, birds, fishes, and many insects. It is only in the lowest 
forma of the animated creation where traces of this substance 
cannot be found. The substance itself, no matter whether in 
man, beast, or bird, has nearly the same composition, is ar- 
ranged in much the same manner, and is only different in 
quality, quantity, and function. Now, the difference in the 
ego >>( every animated creature, from man down to tin' lowest. 
is the difference in brain-substance. It' (><>d has seen lit to so 
arrange atoms and molecule.- int.. a substance that will reflect 
certain attributes of hi- substance, in the conscious life of the 
creatures of bis own handiwork, thereby projecting himself, or 
certain attributes of himself, into the lives of hi- own creatun -. 

who shall reply against (ii,<]{ What objection to the then-lit 

thai he has so arranged the brain of the St. Bernard dog thai 
that brain can appropriate, collect, and make manifest one of 
the noblest traits of the Deity, and -end this humble servitor 



166 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

upon a mission from the high Court of Heaven to save from 
cold and hunger and death the wayfarer who has lost his path 
in the Alpine snow? Is the thought heretical or sacrilegious, 
to suppose the song of the nightingale or the mocking-bird 
to be a discordant note of the Celestial Choir, tinkling through 
the brains of these musicians of the woods? Who shall say 
nay to the suggestion that the brain matter of the elephant, 
the horse, the camel, the ostrich, arid the carnivora are machines 
for the collection of fragmentary attributes of the Deity him- 
self, and making so much of him manifest in the conscious lives 
of these animals? Is God a material being, to be dismembered 
by such a thought? Away with your anthropomorphism! 
God is a spirit; God is light; God is love; so says the inspired 
writer. Can spirit suffer disintegration or dismemberment? 
Does the light of the sun become less by striking a match, or 
lighting a candle? Can love be diminished by division? An- 
other thing : the instinct of the hive-bee, which enables the little 
insect to construct with mathematical nicety the cells of its 
comb, thereby utilizing space with as much economy as the 
finest and most accomplished engineer, is only a manifestation 
of God in the brain of the little worker. And so it is, wherever 
God has implanted life: in the towering oak and the trailing 
vine; in the flower and the fruit; in the microbe and the 
amoeba? — life and all attributes of life can be nothing more than 
Deity manifesting himself. It may be objected to this view 
that, thereby, God would become the author of evil — that the 
birds of prey, the carnivorous animals, the fishes, reptiles and 
the poisonous serpent would be manifestations of his Spirit. 
Why not? If God's attributes are limited to power and knowl- 
edge, goodness, mercy, justice, and love, how is man to reflect 
his image? Is he any more just than the wild beast of the 
forest? Is he merciful to the weak? Does he love his fellow- 
man? Read his history in his wars of conquest. See the 
tortures he has inflicted upon innocence and helplessness. Be- 
hold the implements of destruction he has invented, by means 
of which God's guiltless creatures are slaughtered and his 
own kind murdered. If man is the complete image of God — 
then, who can find fault with the savage beast being a part 
of his image? Man has made the mistake of believing he is 



Manhood. 167 

the only image of God — the personification of his Maker upon 
earth. The truth is, God, in making the brain of man, gave it 
the right of usufruct to one attribute of the divine essence, 
denied to the lower animals; and this right makes the differ- 
ence between him and the brute. God is too great, and too 
powerful, and too perfect for man to be his sole representative. 
If the whole universe of matter was converted into one mass 
of brain-substance, it might represent all the attributes of 
Deity; but the brain of man falls as far short of this rep- 
resentation as it falls short of the size and weight of the uni- 
verse. It is no sacrilege to assert that God is manifested in 
the voracious shark, the venomous serpent, and the loathsome 
reptile. If these creatures are representatives of evil, why 
should man assume that a perfect God is too pure, for such 
emanations to proceed from his essence when his word is di- 
rectly to the contrary? 'I form the light and create darkness; 
I make peace and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.' 
Man's brain being out of all proportion the largest, compared 
with the size of the body, of all God's creatures, we would 
naturally expect him to be endowed with more of the attributes 
of his Maker, and represent a more perfect image of the Divine 
essence. In addition to size, we have range of capacity, incom- 
parably greater than the lower animals. The brain of man 
is so constituted as to enable it to collect or to make manifest 
that particular divine attribute which enables him to think on 
abstract subjects, and which adds immeasurably to the scope 
of his mental attainments. Reason and its dependencies form 
an impassable gulf between man and the lower animals. The 
brute brain, by the arrangemenl of Lte molecules, or by the fiat 
of its Makei-, has the power to develop instinct, a faculty as 
incomprehensible to man as reason i- to the brute. That in- 
stinct IS an attribute of God is as paten! as any other facl iii 
the psychology of animated nature. If God bad Been fit to 
make the brain of man as perfecl for the development of rea- 
bob as be made the brute brain for the development of instinct, 
moral evil would bave boon an impossibility and mechanical 
failures never bave existed. Mian would bave been a perfecl 
being, and be would bave needed no teacher. The Creator 
showed bis wisdom bare, as in all bis other works; for in mak- 



168 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

ing man he clearly wanted a creature who, by his own exertions, 
could make endless progress, and by his failures gain wisdom. 

"The mythical Garden of Eden is only the spectral image 
of that imperfect brain cell, endeavoring to parallel its own 
weakness with the perfect wisdom of God. And so with the 
attributes of Deity as enumerated by the orthodox theologian. 
He is curtailed and limited to that extent that they found 
it necessary to invent the devil to account for the irregularities 
of the Universe. 'The foolishness of God is wiser than men,' 
and to limit him in any conceivable attribute is to detract 
from his perfection, and to think of him as a mere man. 

"This theory of the functional activity of brain-substance 
has its parallel in the workings of the various machines for 
the development of the electrical force, and if faulty, it is at 
least as plausible as any heretofore set forth. It explains, not 
how, but why, and through what particular organ the Deity 
manifests himself to his rational creatures, and simplifies that 
psychological indagation so earnestly pursued by students of 
nature. It also rids the mind of all anthropomorphic ideas, 
and places God on a plane so far above man that such expres- 
sions as 'Thou shalt see my back parts; but my face shall not 
be seen,' will be relegated to the Apocrypha, and the Sacred 
Volume purged of the embarrassing phraseology which leans 
toward ridicule and contempt." 

Here the traveler entered his protest against this continua- 
tion of the material philosophy, and the endeavor of his ra- 
tionalistic friend to push reason into the inner arcanum of a 
subject which nothing but Revelation can bring to light. 

In the next chapter a review of the schoolmaster's position 
will be entered into, and the true Christian philosophy set forth 
by the man whose experience outweighs his reason. 



Matter and Spirit. 169 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MATTER AXD SPIRIT. 

The walk toward home was about half finished, and the 
traveler had become so interested in the schoolmaster's dis- 
course that he had forgotten his grievance, and, notwithstand- 
ing his settled conviction that human philosophy was a delu- 
sion, he could see some points in the old man's theory that 
appeared neither to antagonize Revelation nor to outrage com- 
mon sense, He felt that the schoolmaster was leaning a little 
to the side of Orthodoxy, and he desired to encourage that 
spiritual growth, the germ of which lay fallow in the mind of 
the teacher. To this end he spoke as follows : 

"My friend, you are more of a metaphysician than a theo- 
logian. You contend for mere abstractions, and blind yourself 
with illusions flowing from the self-conscious life of active in- 
telligence; and in your attempt to harmonize our thought of 
our relation to God, you conjure up a phantasm of the imagi- 
nation, and flourish it about as a rational principle of the laws 
of causation. Your theory of the functional activity of brain- 
substance is a mere shadow of the mind groping in darkness, 
and the metaphysical necessity following that shadow is a 
chimerical abstraction leading to the great primeval Nothing. 
You would blot out the personality of God and plot a Pan- 
theistic Syncretism. You would annul his creative acts and 
make man a phenomenon of Evolution. This would destroy 
individuality and place the human soul in the category of in- 
sect and plan! life. Yon preach Dualism, with a mixture of 
Pantheism. Von labor under the capital vice of attempting 
to bring within the forms of the understanding what tran- 
Bcends the capacity of thought . 

"For ages, philosophers, instead of interpreting aright the 
fact of consciousness in external perception, laid it down as 
a first principle that the object known was different from the 
object perceived. This crotchet, accepted without examina- 
tion and transmitted in different forms, was never questioned 
until it brought forth the fruit of universal skepticism. In 
the same way, the principle that out ..f nothing, nothing can 



170 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

be made, lias been universally applied to notbing as material 
cause, and bas not only excluded the possibility of creation, 
but contains in its bosom tbe seeds of absolute atbeism. 

"Subject and object, mind and matter, as revealed in con- 
sciousness, tbougb real substances, are limited, conditioned, de- 
pendent. Tbey reciprocally condition each otber. They are 
bound by time and space. Tbe world presents an aspect of 
mutability, a successive influence of cause and effect, a constant 
interchange of action and reaction. Its history is a history of 
vicissitudes. The world is finite. This is as clearly the testi- 
mony of consciousness as that the world exists. It has no prin- 
ciple in it that resists succession and change. On the contrary, 
it is bound to time, which necessarily implies both. These 
two facts, that the world exists and that the world is finite, 
imply another, that the world must have begun. A succession 
without a beginning is a contradiction in terms. It is equiva- 
lent to eternal time. A being of whose existence time is the 
law cannot be eternal. A chain without a first link is impossi- 
ble, but a first link annihilates the notion of eternal being. 
The world, therefore, had a beginning. 

"Having reached this point, we are led to an inevitable dis- 
junction. If it had a beginning, it began spontaneously, or it 
sprang from a cause. An absolute commencement is not only 
inconceivable, but contradictory to that great law of intelligence 
which demands for every new appearance a cause. The world, 
therefore, must have been caused, but a cause which begins 
existence, creates; therefore, the world must have been created. 

"There is still another step which we are authorized to take. 
As the finite is limited to time, and as time begins with the 
finite, the being who creates must be independent of time. That 
the first creature should have been made by a finite being, is 
equivalent to saying that time was before it began. It is, there- 
fore, a contradiction in terms, to attribute all beginning to the 
begun. The Creator, therefore, must be eternal and necessary. 
Creation makes the transition from nothing to something; 
hence, creation as an unconditioned exercise of power; as re- 
quiring neither material, instrument, nor laws; as transcending 
change, modifications, or adjustments of existing things, is the 



Matter and Spirit. 171 

sole prerogative of God. It is His to create, as it is His to 
destroy. The principle is vital in theology." 

The two men had now reached a shady place in the road 
close to a stream of water; and the day being sultry, they de- 
cided to rest a bit before concluding their walk. After bath- 
ing face and hands in the stream, they seated themselves under 
a spreading beech tree to enjoy the refreshing breeze. The 
schoolmaster was a great admirer of Socrates, and endeavored 
in many ways to follow the example of the illustrious Greek. 
Like him, he never harangued or grew eloquent, but analyzed, 
disputed, and discussed. He asserted that all truth is kindred, 
and so clear thinking is consistent with holiness and leads to 
it, while inaccurate thinking on any subject is morally danger- 
ous, and an uncertainty or falsehood in the intellect might 
at last be found to be the "apex of hell." The orthodox view 
of the creation of the universe and the beginning of time pre- 
sented so many difficulties to a mind like his that he rejected 
the tenet as derogatory to God and inconsistent with the nature 
of matter and spirit. 

"If," said he, to his companion, "God created matter out of 
nothing, he created freely or he acted under compulsion or 
necessity. If he created under necessity, he is not free, but the 
subject of some other power, and is, therefore, neither Sover- 
eign nor Almighty. But God is free, almighty, sovereign, ab- 
solute; therefore, his acts of creation were voluntary — uncon- 
ditioned save by his own will. The nature of matter is such 
as to be incompatible with infinite goodness, infinite benev- 
olence and omnipotence. The vile combinations it assumes, 
the poisonous germs Li evolves, and it- ofl'ensiveness under putre- 
factive processes, make it impossible that it should be the cre- 
ative act of God without making God the author <>i' evil. The 
creation of matter out of nothing involves another difficulty 
at variance with reason. It' God is eternal and matter i< net 

eternal, there clearly was a period when nothing existed hut 

God, and if time only began with creation, that period prior 

to creation. Id it he long OT short, is unnamahle and unthink- 
able. We gel no relief by calling it eternity. A period prior 
to time, called eternity, in which aothing existed but God, 
would bring up such questions a-. What was God doing in 



172 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

this eternity? Was he working out the problem of creation? 
Was he formulating laws by which matter, after its creation, 
should be governed? Was he thinking out plants and animals 
and men, or was he idly contemplating his own grandeur? 
The very thought of a period before time and before creation 
is repugnant to the common sense of man. Webster defines 
time as absolute or unmeasured duration. Time, it seems to 
me, is as independent of God as God is of time, and to speak 
of existence before time is simply nonsense. Time has ex- 
isted from all eternity and will exist to all eternity, but time 
is neither a material substance nor a spiritual essence. It is 
only an abstraction — a mental concept — and, therefore, can 
neither be created nor destroyed. 

"If God is not a separate existence from matter, Pantheism 
is the true philosophy and the divine religion; for, if matter 
is an emanation from God, it is a part of him, and if he 
created it out of nothing, he is the father of it. There is no 
process of reasoning that can separate God from matter, and at 
the same time make him the author of it. The postulate, that 
God and matter are coexistent and eternal, makes an easy ex- 
planation to the phenomena of the universe. The chaos of 
Genesis is the state in which matter existed before God set to 
work in his acts of creation. It is neither irreverent nor sacri- 
legious to suppose that God saAv the 'chaos,' the confusion, 
the want of law, the omnium gatherum in which the particles 
of matter lay inert, lifeless, powerless — 'without form and 
void' — and that by his omnipotent and omniscient energy he 
fashioned and created the universe and all it contains. That he 
made the best universe possible out of the materials at his com- 
mand is to admit his infinite goodness. That he made it all 
to suit himself is to admit his sovereignty. 

"If, in the plenitude of his infinite benevolence, he saw fit 
to provide means of communication between himself and his 
rational creatures, thereby making himself partially known to 
the highest type of his creations — man — he was compelled, ne- 
cessitated, to so arrange the ultimate particles of matter into a 
combination, peculiarly different from all other combinations, 
that would have the particular quickening power of collect- 
ing, absorbing, or making manifest so much and no more of 



Matter and Spirit 173 

the divine attributes. When I say, God was under the neces- 
sity of utilizing matter for the purpose of revealing himself, 
I only mean that he is limited to the possible; for by and 
through matter are all things accomplished. That combination 
of matter known as brain-substance is the medium through 
which he has chosen to communicate with man, and by means 
of this substance alone has he made it possible for us to par- 
tially understand his nature and his works. A creature that 
could understand and comprehend the Godhead in its entirety 
would have required all the matter in the universe to be made 
into one gigantic man, and then, instead of a man, there would 
have been another God; so you see the utter impossibility of 
human knowledge ever extending to a full acquaintauce with 
the Deity. But through brain-substance certain attributes of 
the Divine Being are communicated to every creature that 
breathes the breath of life ; and the quantity, quality, and shape 
of this brain-mass make the difference between the different 
creatures possessing it. If this theory of brain function be 
true, then the psychical life of every creature is determined 
solely by the size, shape, and quality of its brain; and to say 
that any creature — man not excepted — can be other than just 
what it is, is to say that its brain-matter can be changed by the 
creature itself. 

"That character is determined by brain is proved in so 
in any ways that argument would seem superfluous, were it not 
that men refuse to abide by reason and experience. Hundreds 
of instances are recalled where the whole character of the man 
ha- been permanently changed by injuries to the brain; the 
honest man has been changed into a thief; the truthful man 
into a liar; the moral man into a libertine; the industrious 
man into a vagabond, and vice verka. Insanity is now recog- 
nized by physicians as the effect of brain Lesion, ami idiocy we 
all know to he a defecl in bra i a-s nhst ance. Eorsemen well 
know that the vicious habit of balking is often cured by a 
smart blow over the head, causing Blighl concussion of the 
brain. 

"Xiiiv, admitting the validity of your reasoning, that 'an 

absolute eomineiieemenl i< not only im-eneeivahle. hul contrary 
to that greal law of intelligence which demands for every 



174 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

new appearance a cause/ I submit that character is caused; 
that the efficient cause of character is material, and that ma- 
terial is brain. All admit that the dynamo is the efficient 
cause of the power developed from the intangible, imponderable, 
incorporeal and tenuous electric fluid; but the dynamo no more 
creates the electric fluid than the brain creates mind. The 
dynamo simply collects into an individual charge, from the 
great source of supply, and makes manifest the spark or the 
current, just as brain collects from the Great and Universal 
Spirit that which we call the Ego, the person, the individual, 
the man, the beast, bird, or fish." 

"My friend," broke in the traveler, "I am getting impatient 
with you. At times you speak as if you comprehended some of 
the great truths of Revelation, and admitted their authen- 
ticity ; at others, you get entirely off the track and chase a phan- 
tasm of the imagination under the guise of reason. You per- 
sist in the attempt to trace the vital and spiritual intrinsical- 
ities of both animal and vegetable activity, through matter 
as efficient cause, to God as final cause, thereby destroying 
man's personality and human responsibility — placing man on 
the same footing with the beast and vegetable, and making God 
the author of evil. Go to ! your philosophy is not only infi- 
delity, but absolute atheism. If brain-substance is the medium 
through which God reveals Himself to man, and by your theory 
it would require all the matter in the universe to be formed 
into a gigantic man before the Deity could be clearly compre- 
hended, what, according to this theory, would become of the 
divinity of Jesus Christ, and that fundamental dogma of the 
Christian religion — the Holy Trinity? We have no account of 
the brain of Christ being any different from that of the men 
of His day, and to make His Sonship depend upon the size 
and shape of His brain would be to place Him on an equality 
with the balance of mankind. It would make Him different 
from the ordinary man only as Goldsmith was different from 
the miser Elwes, or as St. Paul was different from Rabelais. 

"In me is a perpetual miracle, and a living witness to the 
supernatural power of Christ; and if He be not risen from 
the dead, then 'are we of all men the most miserable/ " 



Matter and Spirit. 175 



At this last touch of evangelical monomania, the schoolmas- 
ter's heart began to thump, and his excitable brain began to 
conjure up scenes of Corybantic extravagance, little in accord 
with the calm, philosophical deportment of his guest. For a 
moment he was unable to speak. The conversations had been 
so foreign to anything Quixotic, that he had almost forgotten 
the crotchet which first introduced him to his friend. After 
a little reflection, he decided to pass by this ethereal fancy, and 
draw him out on the great subject of Christ's divinity. 



176 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 

"I would fain/' began the teacher, "have avoided this part 
of the subject, as we can have no foothold in a philosophical 
discussion, where the beginning and end, necessarily, rest on 
testimony which is valid to one man and invalid to another. 
But the statements in the testimony we have so conflict with 
one another that it is well enough to balance accounts and see 
which side is the heavier. 

"You claim that Christ is a Divine person, who rose from 
the dead after being crucified; that while on earth he wrought 
miracles in divers ways and brought the dead to life ; the Church 
claims that he is God — very God. 

"The testimony of a person on trial is sometimes of more im- 
portance than that of outside witnesses. "We will let him tes- 
tify in his own behalf on this most vital point. 

"It is very clear that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, 
but that he made this claim in any other sense than is allow- 
able to all men, has never been satisfactorily proven. His ene- 
mies drew inferences that were not justifiable by his words, 
and his friends as often mistook his meaning. The Jews set 
many traps to convict him of blasphemy, and as they had a 
law against his claim, as they understood it, finally succeeded 
in passing a legal sentence which insured his death. At his 
trial the high priest asked him this question : 'Art thou the 
Christ, the Son of the Blessed?' And Jesus said, 'I am.' This 
was enough. The vote was unanimous for his conviction of 
blasphemy, and the statute against blasphemy was death. Every 
believer, therefore, who holds to the divinity of Christ must 
agree with M. Salvador, that 'a Jew had no logical alternative 
to belief in the Godhead of Jesus Christ except the impera- 
tive duty of putting him to death.'* 

"After this, in a prayer he said : 

" 'O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ! never- 
theless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.' 



"Would a sane man pray to himself? 



♦Bampton Lectures. 



The Divinity of Christ 177 

"And if Christ is God, was he not praying to himself? In 
this prayer he clearly makes a distinction between his and the 
Father's will. In another place he says : 

M 'I seek not my own. but the will of my Father.' 
"Kef erring to his second coming, he said : 

" 'But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the 
angels which are in heaven, neither the Son. but the Father.' 

"Here he admits that the Father's knowledge is greater than 
his own. In a talk to his disciples concerning himself and the 
Father, he said : 

•• "I go unto the Father; for my Father is greater than I.' 
"•If a man love me he will keep my words: and my Father will 
love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him.' 

"Was he not there clearly making a distinction between per- 
sons, viz., himself, his Father, and his disciple? Teaching in 
the temple one day Jesus declared himself to be the light of 
the world, when the Pharisees accused him of bearing record 
of himself, saying: 'Thy record is not true.' Jesus answered 
by saying : 

" 'It is written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. 
I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me 
bearetfa witness of me.' 

"ITere is an entire separation of his own personality and 
that of the Father. And I would like to know how it is pos- 
sible to make two wi messes out of one person." 

"O my soul!" exclaimed his companion, in anguish. "You 
step on holy ground with unwashed feet. You approach the 
mystery of mysteries as you would a problem in arithmetic; 
you would explain or destroy the Trinity. 

•••I thank tii<'<-. Father, L<>r<] of heaven and earth, thai thou 
hast hi<i these things from tin 1 wise and prudent, and hasl revealed 
them unto babes.' " 

The schoolmaster was checkmated. A- n reasoner Ik- could 
not contend with prayer; as n philosopher be was disarmed 



178 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

before the altar. "Perhaps," said he, "to discuss the mission 
of Jesus, and the doctrines he taught, would come more legiti- 
mately under the head of a philosophical discourse than to dis- 
cuss the nature of his being, or the divinity of his person ; and 
as his tenets are understood differently by different sects, a 
disagreement as to his true mission in life must be less offensive 
than to question his nature. 

"If he came here as a man only, no matter how exalted 
his nature, he was subject to the contingencies of life just as 
other men are; but if he was very God, as claimed by the 
Church, his plans were all worked out, and he knew from the 
beginning every incident of his life, from birth to the day of 
his death. This you are bound to admit or you must deny his 
divinity. Granting him this foreknowledge, no contingency can 
alter the fact ; no suppositions, no hypothecations, have the 
power to forestall the knowledge. He knew from all eternity 
that he would be ushered into the world through the Virgin 
Mary; that one of his apostles would betray him; that the 
Jewish Sanhedrim would condemn him to death; that Pilate 
would wash his hands of the so-called crime ; that he would be 
crucified between two malefactors ; that Joseph would deposit his 
dead body in his own new tomb; that he would rise from the 
dead on the third day, and that he would be 'received up into 
heaven and sit on the right hand of God.' These things, if 
he was God, he knew would be certain to take place. He fur- 
thermore knew which one of his disciples would betray him, 
for he predicted it in these words : 

" 'Now, I tell you before it come, that when it is come to pass, ye 
may believe that I am he.' 

"Upon being asked, 'Which one V he answered : 

" 'He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it. And 
when he had dipped the sop he gave it to Judas Iscariot.' 'And after 
the sop, Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him. That 
thou doest, do quickly.' " 



Judas Iscariot 179 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

JUDAS ISCARIOT. 

"Judas has been accused of being a thief prior to this sup- 
per, but if Christ was God, and Judas was a thief before he 
received the sop, Christ knew it when he chose him for his 
disciple; but it is expressly said in the text that Satan entered 
into him after he had taken the sop. 

"To an unprejudiced mind this would look much like cause 
and effect. If Christ was God, knowing Judas to be a thief 
before taking him as one of his apostles, and delegating him 
with authority and 'power against unclean spirits, to cast them 
out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of dis- 
ease' ; and bidding him to go forth and 'preach, saying, the 
Kingdom of heaven is at hand' ; and to 'heal the sick, cleanse 
the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out devils' ; and advising 
him, 'When you come into a house, salute it, and if the house 
be worthy, let your peace come upon it : but if it be not worthy, 
let your peace return to you; and whosoever shall not receive 
you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house 
shake off the dust of your feet for a testimony against them' ; 
and telling him furthermore that 'Whosoever shall confess me 
before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is 
in heaven ; hut whosoever shall deny me before men, him 
will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven' ; and 
worse than all, saying to this man whom he knew to be a 
devil: 'Think not thai I am come to send peace on earth: I 
came not to send peace, bul a sword. For I am come to Be1 
a man at variance against his father, and the daughter againsl 
her mother, and the daughter-in-law againsl her mother-in- 
law 5 — I submil thai such counsel and Buch a Lecture to a wicked 
man. after delegating him with such fearful power, could pro- 
duce nothing hut evil consequences, even in the ordinary con- 
tingencies of life; hut Bpoken by an all-wise ami omnipotent 

Being to a frail mortal, of weak intellect and cursed with the 
basest Of human passions, it would, indeed, have heen heller 
for t hat man had he never heen horn. 



180 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"A purely intellectual view, stripped of the glamour of re- 
ligious sentiment, of this whole transaction, as related in the 
gospels, makes Judas the most helpless, the most pitiable, the 
most tragical wretch who ever lived upon this earth. Chosen 
by an Omnipotent Being to perpetrate a predetermined crime; 
tempted by a deadly insult of this same being without provoca- 
tion ; called a devil, and the 'Son of perdition' ; selected of all 
men for the delivery of his master into the hands of his ene- 
mies, and this 'by the determinate council and foreknowledge 
of God/ Judas deserves commiseration even in hell. 

"In reporting this blood-curdling tragedy to the Father, 
Jesus Christ says : 

" 'Those whom thou gavest me have I kept ; and none of them is 
lost, but the Son of perdition.' 

"And why was this Son of perdition lost? Was it because 
he was a thief? ~No. Was it because he was a devil? No. 
Was it because he betrayed his master? ~No. Then why was 
he lost? Let Christ himself answer: 'That the Scripture may 
he fulfilled/ 

"Now, let me ask you in the name of justice and mercy, 
what Judas had to do with this denouement. In anticipation 
I would say there are but two possible answers : the one scrip- 
tural and the other philosophical — or rather unphilosophical. 
The scriptural answer is ad hominem — the reply of the tyrant 
to the victim — the answer the wolf gave to the lamb. St. 
Paul expressed it in these words : 

" 'Who art thou, man, that repliest against God ; hath not the 
potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel 
unto honor and another unto dishonor?' 

"Plu-ri-bus-tah expressed it more vulgarly when he gave 
'Cuffee' his reason for enslaving him : 

"'I am white and I am stronger; 
You are black and you are weaker, 
And, besides, you have no business 
And no right to be a nigger.' 

"The philosophical answer takes you back to that egotistical 
principle in man which dominates the religious world, and 



Judas Iscariot 181 

blinds the creature with the image of the Creator, until he is 
ready to assert, 'I am that I am.' That self-love and self-deifi- 
cation which overpowers man in his search for truth, places his 
will on an equality with the will of his Maker, and looks upon 
reason as an intruder, whose presence is contaminating, and 
whose company is only fit for the denizens of the lower regions. 

"If Judas, by his own will power, could have abstained 
from this treachery, would not his will have been more power- 
ful than the will of God? Leaving out the moral and religious 
aspect of this tragedy, tell me if the causes operating upon 
Judas, over which he had no control, were not sufficient to 
compel him to the act. And, being compelled, irresistibly 
driven by a will infinitely above his own, the cruelty and malig- 
nancy of Mephistopheles himself must quail at the horrible in- 
justice of his sentence. 

"You accuse me of infidelity. Is it strange that a book, 
claiming to be the word of God, bearing such records as this; 
detailing in horror the trial, sentence, and execution of a vio- 
lator of the statute law of the country he was born in; call- 
ing a man who was honored by God himself to the dignity of 
treasurer of finance, a thief, a devil, the son of perdition ; used 
as henchman to execute an order made 'by the determinate 
counsel and foreknowledge of God/ and consigning this man to 
endless torture for no reason under heaven save 'that the Scrip- 
ture might be fulfilled' — I ask in the name of all that is just 
and holy, if such a book, read and studied with a view to what 
it really means, is not calculated to make infidels of all honest 
men?" 



182 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

JOB. 

"Take the case of Job, 'a perfect and upright man/ a man 
in whom there was no frailty ; smitten as no other man ever was, 
both in person and effects ; by whom and for what cause ? By 
God, with the exception of the boils (for it seems the devil 
was allowed that pleasure), for no cause under heaven unless 
it was to gratify Satan. In a conversation with this fiend 
about Job, the narrative makes God say to Satan: 

" 'Thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.' 

"And the same makes Job say of God, that he 'multiplieth 
my wounds without cause' ; and has God to commend Job for 
speaking of him 'the thing that is light/ 

"Now, to afflict anybody or anything, without cause, is the 
act of a tyrant, and savors more of demonology than theology. 
While this story of Job is one of the most beautiful romances 
that ever was conceived in the brain of man, it is incorporated 
in a book which the Christian world claims to be the word 
of God; and, as such, they are bound to believe it to be the 
statement of an historical fact ; and whoever doubts its truth 
as set forth in the narrative is an infidel, and perjures him- 
self when he joins a Christian church. 

"If this story had been found in the writings of Confucius, 
in the Vedas, the Koran, or the book of Mormon, the Chris- 
tian world would have rejected it as a heathen slander of the 
Almighty. From any other than a Christian standpoint, the 
gist of it would be as follows : God being very proud of 
having performed a piece of flawless work, he calls Satan's at- 
tention in a sort of boastful manner to the beauty of his handi- 
work, and invites his criticism. 

"Satan being a devotee of imperfection, advises a test, cruel, 
heartless, and destructive, which nothing but a masterpiece 
could withstand. Failing in this, he calls for another, when 
God, doubting his own ability to devise any torture cruel enough 
to shake the integrity of Job, places him in the hands of Satan 
with the sole condition of sparing his life. Now, it is well 



Job. 183 

enough to know who this Satan is, whose good opinion and 
whose admiration God appears to be soliciting. Palgrave 
says : 

" 'The legendary Satan is a being wholly distinct from the the- 
ological Lucifer. He is never ennobled by the sullen dignity of the 
fallen angel. No traces of celestial origin are to be discovered on 
his brow. He is not a rebellious reon who was once clothed in radi- 
ance, but he is the fiend, the enemy, evil from all time past in his 
very essence, foul and degraded, cowardly and impure ; his rage is 
oftenest impotent, unless his cunning can assist his power.' 

"Into the hands of this fiend God places the only perfect man 
who ever lived on this earth. Satan, believing no man's in- 
tegrity can withstand physical torture, covers him with a solid 
sore from head to foot. Job sits down on a dung-heap and 
scrapes off the filth with a broken pot lid. Here he bewails 
his calamities, and curses the day of his birth. 

'• Let the day perish,' he says, 'wherein I was born, and the night 
in which it was said, a man-child is conceived. Why did I not die 
in the womb, why did I not perish at once when I came out of the 
belly V Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to 
them that are in bitterness of soul?' 

"Like all good men, Job not only believed in moral excellence, 
but he was profoundly religious. He had been reared and 
educated in that school which, to-day, in another form, teaches 
the doctrine of rewards and punishments. His moral recti- 
tude and his experience had combined to give a staggering blow 
to this belief, when his three best friends caino preaching the 
doctrine in its mosl offensive form. Feeling from the bottom 
of his hearl thai he, in his own case, was a sure contradiction 
of what ho bad learned to believe, he himself finds his very 
faith in God shaken from its foundation. The creed in which he 
bad believed had been tried and found wanting. He is vehe- 
ment, desperate, reckless. His Language is the wild, natural 
outpouring of suffering. Th<- friends, true to the eternal na- 
ture of man, are grave, solemn, and Indignant, preaching their 

half truth, and mistaken only in BUppOsing thai it is the whole; 
Speaking, as all SUch persons would speak, and <till do speak. 

iii defending what they consider sacred truth againsl the a-- 



184 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

saults of folly and skepticism. Hearing of their friend's mis- 
fortune and sickness, they resolve to visit and comfort him. 

" 'And when they had lifted up their eyes afar off they knew him 
not, and crying out they wept, and rending their garments they 
sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.' 

"So changed was Job, so altered in appearance, that at first 
sight they did not recognize him. From the dignified, high- 
toned, cultured gentleman of wealth and leisure, they found a 
dirty, miserable wretch sprawling in the dirt, crying out in 
the bitterness of his anguish : 

" 'Before I eat I sigh ; and as overflowing waters, so is my 
roaring.' 

"Now, the object of this visit was that of pure sympathy, 
'for they had made an appointment to come together and visit 
him, and comfort him. And they sat with him on the ground 
seven days and seven nights, and no man spoke to him a word : 
for they saw that his grief was very great.' During these 
seven days the friends had ample opportunity to study Job's 
case, and to philosophize over his misfortune. It seems that 
Eliphaz, the Temanite, being a strong believer in the philoso- 
phy of cause and effect, and being superstitious as to dreams, 
for he says un the horror of a vision by night a spirit passed 
before me, and I heard the voice as it were of a gentle 
wind,' and being desirous to lead Job back into the path of 
moral rectitude, and to convince him that his own conduct 
had brought his misfortunes upon him, gently insinuated his 
unwelcome advice by pleading excuse for his presumption, said 
to Job: 

" 'If we begin to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill, but 
who can withhold the words he hath conceived?' 

"And then to let Job know that man is a free moral agent, 
whose will determines his actions, and, let the consequences be 
what they may, the responsibility should rest upon his own 
shoulder, said to him : 

" 'Nothing upon the earth is done without a cause, and sorrow- 
doth not spring out of the ground. Remember, I pray thee, who- 
ever perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed? On 
(lie contrary. T have seen those who work iniquity, perishing by the 
blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his wrath.' 



Job. 185 

"The immense distance between Job and his friend is seen 
in the scornful reply of the sick man : 

" 'You dress up speeches.' said he. 'only to rebuke, and you utter 
words to the wind. You rush in upon the fatherless, and you 
endeavor to overthrow your friend.' 

"Whether or not this taunt put a momentary blush upon the 
brow of Eliphaz, it is certain that Bildad, his Shuhite friend, 
immediately came to his assistance, and in the lofty tones of 
outraged decency upbraided Job in language more fitted to a 
criminal than to one suffering at the hands of inexorable fate. 

" 'How long,' said he. 'wilt thou speak these things, and how long 
shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? Doth God 
pervert judgment, or doth the Almighty overthrow that which is 
just'.'' 

"Job seems to have had little patience with Bildad, and in 
a few words demolished his theory by asserting a fact. He 
must have pitied these men in their narrow view of God's 
providence, and rather than reason from insufficient data, he 
preferred to quash a false theory by showing that it could not 
be built upon the facts of existence. Addressing Bildad, he said, 
in very emphatic language: 

"'One tbing there is that I have spoken, both the innocent and 
the wicked he consumeth. If he scourge, let him kill at once, and 
not laugh ;it the pains of the Lnnocent.' 

"Job's short reply to Bildad seems to have given umbrage 
to Zophar, his third friend, who now offered his consolation in 
tlio-<- words : 

"'Shall not lie thai speaketh much hear also? or shall a man full 

of talk be Justified? Shall men hold their peace lo thee only? and 

when thou haul mocked others, shall no man confute thee? For 

thou hast said : my word is pure, and I am clean in thy sight.' 

••Job now began tO feel a little resentful toward these men. 
who no doubt eame with the best of motives, and really in- 
tended dob a service, Ian whose way of Looking at things was 

SO different from that of the sick man that to them he i- a 
blasphemer whom they gaze at with awe and terror. Into the 
high faith of Job they could n-a rise, and the sublime thought 



186 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

of this devout sufferer appeared to them gross impiety. The 
irritation he felt was shown in his answer to Zophar : 

" 'He that is mocked by his friend as I, shall call upon God and 
he will hear him : for the simplicity of the just man is laughed to 
scorn.' 

"How like, these friends, to the rigidly righteous of the pres- 
ent day! Ready at all times to interpret the mind of Om- 
niscience, they set a seal upon their neighbor's conduct, and 
rest assured that God will confirm their verdict, and punish 
or condone as they decide. But the everlasting fate of man is 
not in the hands of his fellows. 

"Notwithstanding Job's protest, notwithstanding his dis- 
pleasure at their unjust accusations, the friends continue their 
polemics on the same line, through a long chapter of repeti- 
tions ; and when, at last, the vocabulary is exhausted, and Job 
is not yet confounded, it seems that another — one Elihu — a 
self-important, pretentious young man who, without invitation, 
had obtruded himself into this company, became very angry, 
not only with Job, but his three friends, because they had 
failed to convince him of sin, and get his acknowledgment. 

"Where Elihu came from, and what business he had at this 
man's house, the account does not state; but we may well im- 
agine him to be a youth of decent parentage, having the ad- 
vantage of wealth and culture; for he showed evidence of 
good breeding by holding his tongue while the others spoke; 
in fact, he apologized for putting in at all, but he was so full, 
and had such an overweening opinion of his own abilities, that 
he felt like bursting if he did not give vent to his knowledge. 
Addressing the three friends, he said: 

" 'I am younger in days, and you are more ancient, therefore, 
hanging down my head, I was afraid to show you my opinion ; for 
I hoped that greater age would speak, and that multitude of years 
would teach wisdom. But as I see, they that are aged are not the 
wise men, neither do the ancients understand judgment; therefore. I 
will speak: Hearken to me: I also will show you my wisdom. As 
long as I thought you said something, I considered ; but as I see there 
is none of you that can convince Job, and answer bis words, I also 
will answer my part, and will show my knowledge; for I am full of 
matter to speak of, and the spirit of my bowels straighteneth me. 



Job. 187 

Behold, my belly is as new wine which wanteth vent ; I will speak 
and take breath a little ; I will open my lips, and will answer.' 

"Elihu then delivered a sermon on the Theodice, but it fell 
upon deaf ears, for neither Job nor his friends took the slight- 
est notice of what he said. The story ends by the interfer- 
ence of God, who not only upholds Job, but condemns the 
friends for not speaking of him 'the thing that is right,' as 
Job did. The final restoration of Job to wealth and happiness 
has a measure of compensation, in strong contrast to the utter 
abandonment of Judas — both being helpless in the hands of 
Supernatural Power." 

"Xow, my Christian friend," continued the teacher, "if you 
can show that either Judas or Job was a free moral agent, i. e., 
had it in their power, surrounded and overpowered as they were 
by the spirit of Omnipotence, to work out their own salvation, 
I am ready and willing to receive the lesson." 



188 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE LESSON. 

The time passed unconsciously in the cool shade of the beech 
tree, while the schoolmaster discoursed and his companion lis- 
tened. The sun had tilted his rays, and the oppressive heat 
began to abate. It was time to walk. The impression made 
upon the traveler by the teacher's criticism was that of weari- 
ness and pain. He had a longing desire to help the old gentle- 
man, and for once he wished for the power of the Christ, that 
he might remove the scales from the eyes of his friend. The two 
men walked a goodly distance, both in deep meditation. The 
mind of the traveler was beset with many temptations, but fear- 
ing the consequences, he took his steps in silence. If he could 
only get the schoolmaster out of the rut of materialism, if he 
could once reconcile him to the supernatural, the way might 
open to a recognition of God's ways with fallen man. 

The traveler acknowledged the unvarying law of cause and 
effect, but he would not permit the Parcoe to decide what he 
would eat for breakfast, or whether he would go to bed at 
9 or 10 o'clock at night. He could not divest his mind of 
the determining power of will as a jus divinum, or admit that 
will followed the inevitable law of sequence to anterior cause. 
He said to himself, "I crook my finger or hold it straight, 
shake my head or hold it still, talk to this schoolmaster or 
remain silent, walk this road or stop, just as I choose. I am 
the primal law over my own actions." He made up his mind 
from appearances. What he saw he was sure of, and what he 
heard was, to him, a fact. His feelings and his perceptions 
overruled his reason. He gave faith the highest seat in the 
galaxy of mental traits, and fed it with the grist from his own 
experience. An abstract idea was invariably rejected, when it 
appeared to conflict with a concrete reality. The earth, to him, 
was flat, because it looked flat. He believed the sun, moon, 
and stars were placed in the heavens to give light and warmth 
to earth, and for that only. He was not a bigot, for he was 
"sovereign o'er transmuted ill"; he would not persecute, be- 



The Lesson. 189 

cause he was a good man. He believed in the God of Moses, 
in Jesus Christ, and in Revelation. He believed every word 
in the Book, and he believed it to be the word of God. He was 
a Christian in the true sense of the word, for he had the testi- 
mony of his own senses, or thought he had, that the Crucified 
was, veritably, the Son of God. He had seen him with his own 
eyes, and witnessed his death. He was suffering from his 
benign resentment now, as he had been for twenty centuries 
past. He believed the sentence to be just, and had ceased to 
complain. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," and his ac- 
ceptance of this truth had given him great comfort in his 
affliction. He loved his fellow-man, and would have loved his 
enemies — but he had none. 

"With these reflections passing rapidly through his mind, 
he was endeavoring to formulate an argument, or a statement 
which he hoped might divert his friend's attention from the 
material to the spiritual aspect of the religious problem ; and, 
without dogmatism or bigotry, but rather in a spirit of humil- 
ity and sorrow, he spoke as follows: 

"To bring men together on a disputed point is a difficult 
matter, unless the premises from which they draw their con- 
clusions can be agreed upon, or, at least, until the categories of 
thought are traced to their origin. As I said to you on another 
occasion, formal thought floats in the air with no foothold. We 
cannot tell what can or cannot be; we can only inquire what is, 
or, at least, what seems to be. In the concrete region the only 
test of possibility apart from the purely negative and formal 
one of noncontradiction is experience. Hence, we have no 
way of forming judgments of things past except by appeal 
to life. Life as it has been throughout the ages is not the 
same to all men. If testimony is to he regarded only as it 

Conforms to formal thought, then all history i< a romance, 
and faith should no longer control the actions <>}' men. 

"When yen tell me that von went to college in your early 
manhood, thai yon bave -pent most of your life in teaching, 
and that you have never assumed the responsibilities of married 
life, I have not the slightest right, either in reason or my 
own experience, to doubt your statements; and bo, when I relate 



190 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

some incidents of my boyhood, youth, and early manhood, it 
is strictly within the limits of reason and probability that you 
accept my story as a statement of facts. 

"Replying to your criticism of the Gospel story of Judas 
Iscariot, and the justness of his sentence, I will state that 
Judas was about my own age, and of the same class of society 
as myself. We were boys together, and I knew him well. He 
lived in the country, but often came to town. I played with 
him on the streets, and sometimes went with him to his father's 
house. It was a poor family, and Judas hated poverty. He 
was ever on the qui vive to get a penny. He hated work, and 
even as a boy he was constantly devising plans by which to get 
advantage. He was not cruel, nor was he considered dishonest, 
but sharp, shrewd, a good trader, and quite a financier for his 
age. Like the character given by our historian Josephus to 
Cain, he was 'wholly intent upon getting.' 

"Our paths separated as we grew up, and for a time we 
lost sight of each other. When Jesus began to be talked about, 
I heard of Judas as one of his followers. They told me he 
had been made treasurer, and carried the 'bag,' and I said. 
'Well ! Judas is now fixed — he will gain an heritage.' 

"The Savior foresaw that he would be betrayed, and that a 
horrible death awaited him; and while I admit that this was 
done by the 'determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,' 
I do not admit and cannot agree that any particular individual 
was selected by this council, and forced, nolens volens, to exe- 
cute the sentence. The law of cause and effect is, to a great 
extent, abrogated when the human will links itself into that 
endless chain which you so artistically forged in a previous 
conversation. The 'twisted link,' so graphically put, as the in- 
verse or antithetical agent, is man's freedom. It is the image 
of God in man, and it gives him power to do or not to do, 
and rejects that atheistical fatalism toward which your short- 
sighted philosophy tends. It is a self-evident truth that you 
and I are now engaged in this conversation of our own free wills 
and accord; that we can close our mouths, if we so choose, and 
not speak another word; that we have it in our power to stop, 
and stand still for an hour, or walk on, and this independently 
of outside influences or extraneous causes. Our present inclina- 



The Lesson. 191 

tions prompt us to walk and to talk, but the momeut our wills 
should say, 'Stop and hush,' the inclinations would be effectu- 
ally banished before the power of will. Man's will is the only 
free cause in the universe outside of God, and, being a free 
cause, it has the virtue of a first cause. Isca riot's will was 
free to betray his Master or not, as Adam's will was free to 
eat the forbidden fruit, as your will is free to listen to my 
speech, as my will is free to talk or to close my lips. Fine- 
spun theories, quiddities, and disparagement of self-evident 
truths lead the mind into Cimmerian darkness. Your philoso- 
phy would destroy volition, and make the mind of man a blind 
force, like gravitation or the law of chemical affinity. It would 
destroy human law and overthrow society and civilization. It 
would do worse: it would extend to the Source of all Light, 
and make God a machine with no attribute save that of Power. 

"In working out conclusions every fact subservient to a theory 
must be taken into consideration. In your theory of the func- 
tional activity of brain-substance you admit what you deny 
here. The emotions, the passions, even brute instinct, are given 
a place there, while here all is excluded except the barbed 
shafts of pitiless reason. The human will has ever been the 
(jd i a in theologicum of religious controversy, and until it is rec- 
ognized as a free cause, and the only free cause except I ln- 
uncaused will of God, there will be wranglings and disagree- 
ments. Logic is the passing bell of religion, the Golgotha 
of worship. It has n<> place in love, affection, nor in the hu- 
manities. It is eold and lifeless; it is the gospel of dirt. En- 
fidelity limits the mind of man to one faculty. It ignores the 
senses, the affections and the feelingB. It would make of reason 
a goo!, and degrade the other faculties into a fetich. Religion, 
on the contrary, embraces every faculty of mind. It tempers 
reason by the sweel influences of the affections, ami controls 
the affections by tin- iron grip of reason. Working in discord. 
they give us Paganism; in harmony, they give us Christianity. 

"The case of Job is the old question: 'Why does God al- 
low the c differ?' The presence or absence of Satan in 
the case adds nothing to the problem and subtracts nothing 
from it. The greal answer of the Scriptures and of Chris- 
tianity is found in the Buffering Savior. If be would not ex- 



192 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

empt himself from pain, it is no impeachment of his love that 
He exempts not his children. It is by suffering that men come 
into Divine fellowship, nor does it appear that they can come 
otherwise. If there was no way that the cup might pass from 
the Savior, in revealing His infinite love, may it not be equally 
true that this love can only be measured through the same 
kind of experience? Wherefore, St. Paul prays that he may 
'enter into the fellowship of His sufferings,' and be made 'con- 
formable unto His death.' 

"If the suffering of the good be a mystery, even when we 
see the God incarnate, author of pain and peace, enter the 
list of sufferers, how much deeper is the darkness when the 
problem of pain is viewed from an unchristian or antichristian 
standpoint! How shall the deist who denies the revelation of 
a suffering Savior explain the great cataclysmic disasters which, 
at times, overwhelm men? But if the best — the only perfect — 
being who ever trod this planet was the Man of Sorrows, we 
may be sure pain is not evil, nor exemption from it the chief - 
est good. If the end of being is exemption from pain, the 
best means of attaining to it are, as Froude says, 'a hard heart 
and a good digestion.' " 



An Interlude. 193 



CHAPTER XXI. 

AX INTERLUDE. 

Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes 
When Monarch Reason sleeps. 

— Drydex. 

They had reached home and it was almost dark. They were 
tired and hungry, and after eating a frugal supper they soon 
went to bed. They slept well — both of them, but the school- 
master awoke about day, with the recollection of having had a 
most extraordinary dream. Had he been tinctured with the 
least bit of superstition he would have regarded this as a warn- 
ing, but his philosophy and his utter repudiation of the super- 
natural enabled him to look upon it as one of the vagaries of 
unconscious cerebration. So profoundly realistic was the im- 
pression made upon his mind by this dream that, immediately 
upon bidding his guest good morning, he said : "I have some- 
thing to tell you. I am not a believer in dreams, in omens, 
nor in visions ; but when I woke up this morning a most real- 
istic picture was stamped upon my memory, and the impression 
was so vivid that, for several minutes, I felt as if it was a real 
substance, and not a hieroglyph of the drowsy god of sleep. 

"I was in an immense plain, a desert of wild, weary waste — 
of lifeless solitude. From the center of this plain radiated in 
all directions well-beaten roads, and I could see, from what 
appeared immeasurable distance, that all the roads converged 
toward a common center; and in this center, upon a slight 
elevation of the ground, stood an immense structure or build- 
ing which glittered in the dazzling radiance of the plain. As- 
tonished ai my situation, and wondering where I could he. I" 
gazed around and saw the roads go into illimitable space from 
the central convergence. I knew not what to do, nor where 

to go. I COuld See thai it' I went toward the center I would 
gel to a resting place, hut in the Other direction I saw no 
end. To the ccntoi- I directed mv -top-, and on the way I saw 

signboards on which was written: 'To the Temple of Wisdom.' 
On the other side of the road were siirnho ;i rds pointing iii the 



194 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

opposite direction : 'To the end of strife.' I couldn't under- 
stand what these backward directions meant, until I met a 
pilgrim who had been on a mission that thousands of others 
had preceded him in, and many thousands would yet follow in 
his footsteps. He had been up to the temple in search of wis- 
dom, and the contrary winds had blown out his lamp. He told 
me that Minerva was no longer there; that long ago she had 
abdicated her throne, and that from the highest pinnacle of 
the edifice floated the red flag of religious controversy; that 
philosophers, theologians, metaphysicians, scientists, and agnos- 
tics crowded in and around the temple, seeking their own cult, 
and gazing, with dazzled eyes and wistful care, at the flaunting 
banner of controversy; that on the flag was written in all char- 
acters and all languages, Volition, Choice, Liberty, Scope, Lati- 
tude, Freedom, Discretion, Fate, Necessity, Foreordination, 
Election, Doom; and, that every one who visited the place be- 
came, dissatisfied at the little consolation he received; for at 
every nook and every corner stood a sentinel and a guide, each 
blind in his own conceit, and carrying in his hand a little red 
flag with which he pointed to the flaming banner at the top 
of the temple. 

"The Methodist was there, and on his flag was painted in 
letters of gold, Choice, Liberty, Freedom. He waved it over 
my head, and told me that 'JSTow is the accepted time.' 

"A little further on, and the Baptist held up his flag. On 
it was written, in subdued tints, Freedom, Necessity. He 
told me, almost in a whisper, that he had 'Compassed sea and 
land to make one pro' — when a little beyond him a rough- 
looking, plainly dressed man, with a charity-begins-at-home air, 
motioned me to look: and his little flag had printed in bold 
black letters, Election, Foreordination, Doom. As I passed by, 
he whispered in my ear, 'We are the chosen of the Lord.' 
This was a 'Hardshell.' 

"Then the Episcopalian held up his flag, and it was painted 
in particolors, and had for its motto, 'The Church.' 

"A few steps further, I struck up with a Jew and a Moham- 
medan. They were in a controversy over the 'scapegoat' and 
the Parcse. 



An Interlude. 195 

"Leaving them to their wranglings, I turned a corner, and 
almost ran into the arms of an Old School Presbyterian. He 
was a dignified, calm-looking old gentleman, and when I made 
excuse for my precipitancy, instead of a benediction, he gave 
me a severe look, and held out his flag, upon which was writ- 
ten in most somber hues : 

'"By the decree of G<xl, for the manifestation of His glory, some 
men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others 
foreordained to everlasting death. These angels and men, thus pre- 
destined and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeahly de- 
signed, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot 
be either increased or diminished.' 

"I bowed, said 'Yes, sir,' and went on. Passing through the 
center of the building, I came to a sort of anteroom or mez- 
zanine floor, in which was collected a most heterogeneous com- 
pany. Some of them were washing one another's feet, others 
anointing with oil, and two or three jumping up and down 
slapping their hands together and crying, 'Glory!' In one cor- 
ner of the room sat, bolt upright, stiff as statues, a half dozen 
others, with their hats on, saying nothing. One of them had a 
flag, and on it was written : 

'Waiting for the Spirit.' 

"I let him wait, and went on. Following down a long cor- 
ridor, I came to a large hall where a lecture was going on. 
The Bpeaker was a pale, cadaverous-looking young- man, who 
was just graduated from a famous university, and his subject 
was 'Transcendental Empiricism.' I listened a while, and. fail- 
ing to catch the thread of his discourse, I went on my way, and 
presently stumbled into a hall of revelry. Here was a jollifica- 
tion — eating, drinking, and making merry. Toastfl were be- 
ing called for, and ribald jests added to the cheer. Jus1 n- I 
entered tic door, n -lock, red-faced, good-natured fellow, dressed 

in the heighl of fashion, hold up a glass of Sparkling wine and 
called out : 

u *To the <;<>d of mirth, the only Deity in the universe deserving 
tin- homage of ;i rational mind. 1 

"Cheer upon cheer followed this priggism, and I passed on 

to t he end of the corridor. 



196 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"On the outside, a few steps from the main court of the 
temple, in a little summer-house, surrounded by evergreens and 
overrun with trailing vines, I found a man who is worthy of a 
description. He was sitting in an easy chair, looking upward 
at the temple and its throng, the last rays of sunlight reflected 
from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered 
costume. Patent-leather pumps, a red cassock, a short purple 
mantle, and a red hat with small crown and broad brim, with 
cords and tassels hanging from it, served to mark him a con- 
spicuous object. His face, lividly pale, but for the energy of 
his action and strength of his lungs, would mark him the 
victim of consumption. His eye is black as Erebus, and has the 
most mocking, lying-in-wait sort of expression conceivable. His 
mouth is alive with a kind of working and impatient nervous- 
ness, and when he has burst forth, as he does constantly, with 
a particularly successful cataract of expression, it assumes a 
curl of triumphant scorn that would be worthy of Mephisto- 
pheles. 

"Our conversation naturally turned on the temple and its 
votaries. I might as well attempt to gather up the foam of the 
sea as to convey an idea of the extraordinary language in 
which he clothed his description. He talked like a race horse 
approaching the winning post, every muscle in action. His 
egotism stands unrivaled. It is admirable in its sublimity. Be- 
fore it I took off my hat. The Protestant elect thinks he is 
chosen, the Jew believes, but this man knows. His commis- 
sion is from Heaven, and the scorn with which he views the 
heresy of other sects is shown in the curl of his lip and the depth 
of his dark, burning eyes. With all this, he can be mild 
as the zephyr wind. Wow and again he smiles that wondrous, 
contagious smile, showing his white teeth, and carrying with 
it the persuasion of the soul. 

"After this, he said: 

" 'My son, thou art disheartened. Thou hast done well to come 
to me. The light of the world is represented in our cult, and on 
the broad bosom of our mother — the Church militant — you will find 
rest for your weary feet, and peace to your troubled mind. Take 
either road from this place; they all lead to the one goal, where 
Protestant errors are corrected and forgiven, infidel tendencies up- 



An Interlude. 197 

rooted, and the soul is purified and made fit for its celestial habita- 
tion. Our mother surrounds this plain, and her hovering wings 
would brood the whole world. Go, and delay not : may the blessings 
of the Church descend upon you." 

"I bade the good man adieu, and I am on my way. Come, 
go with me; you will get no help at the temple. The Oracle 
has ceased to give answers, and the pedantic horde swarming 
around the ancient shrine can give you no light. The truth 
is, that no powers of mind constitute a security against errors 
in belief. Touching God and His ways with man, the highest 
human faculties can discover little more than the meanest. 
In theology, the interval is small indeed between Aristotle and 
a child, between Archimedes and a naked savage. It is not 
strange, therefore, that wise men, weary of investigation, tor- 
mented by uncertainty, longing to believe something and yet 
seeing objections to everything, should submit themselves ab- 
solutely to teachers who, with firm and undoubting faith, lay 
claim to a supernatural commission. It is better to submit 
ourselves to the guidance of those who claim help from on 
High, than to wrangle with the Jew and the Mohammedan, 
the Protestant and Schismatic, the Scientist and Agnostic. 

"Here, I woke up, and before I could get rid of this mental 
obfuscation, I came near calling out to the man — but he was 
gone, and I realized that it was only a dream. Our conversation 
yesterday evidently predisposed to this drowsy conceit, and as 
it points directly to our discussion of human volition, I will 
add, or rather reply to your seeming philosophical argument, 
by pointing out the hidden sophism which obscures the per- 
ception. 

"The last asylum of the hard-pressed advocate of the doctrine 
of uncaused volition la usually that, argue as you like he has 
a profound and ineradicable consciousness of what he calls the 
freedom of his will. Sou avail yourself of this solecism in 
your illustration of crooking your finger, shaking your head, 
etc We cannot surely mean that OCtionfl have so little connec- 
tion with motive, inclination-, and circumstances, thai one 
does not follow witli a certain degree of uniformity from the 
other, and thai on.- affords no inference by which we can con- 



198 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

elude the existence of the other, for these are plain and ac- 
knowledged matters of fact. By liberty, then, we can only 
mean a power of acting or not acting according to the deter- 
minations of the will: that is, if we choose to remain at rest, 
we may; if we choose to move, we also may. fc, this hypo- 
thetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one 
who is not a prisoner and in chains. Here, then, is no dispute. 
Half the controversies about freedom of the will would have 
had no existence if this truthful observation had been well 
pondered by those who oppose the doctrine of necessity. For 
they rest upon the absurd presumption that the proposition, 
'I can do as I like,' is contradictory to the doctrine of neces- 
sity. The answer is, nobody doubts that, at any rate within 
certain limits, you can do as you like. But what determines 
your likings and dislikings? Did you make your own consti- 
tution ? Is it your contrivance that one thing is pleasant and an- 
other is painful? And even if it were, why did you prefer to 
make it after one fashion rather than the other? The passion- 
ate assertion of the consciousness of their freedom, which is 
the favorite refuge of the opponents of the doctrine of necessity, 
is mere futility, for nobody denies it. What they really have 
to do, if they would upset the necessarian argument, is to prove 
that they are free to associate any emotion whatever with any 
idea whatever; to like pain as much as pleasure; vice as much 
as virtue; in short, to prove that, whatever may be the fixity 
of order of the universe of things, that of thought is given over 
to chance. If you would see the workings of uncaused volition 
and perfect freedom of will, visit the wards of a lunatic asylum 
and converse with its inmates. Here, cause is given over to 
chance, volition is without motive, and action represents con- 
fusion. The orderly sequence of cause and effect is inter- 
rupted and the result is chaos." 



The Teachings of Jesus. 199 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS. 

Breakfast over, the two men continued their conversation. 
The schoolmaster had studied for many years the New Testa- 
ment, and studied it as he would any other book — to get the true 
sense of its teaching. Whenever he opened the Sacred Volume 
he did it reverently, without any thought to a dogma, a creed, 
or a church. He was willing for it to be the word of God, and 
he didn't care if it was simply the thoughts of men. He an- 
alyzed, sifted, dissected the book as he would any pet theory 
of a secular philosopher. He didn't care what it taught, so he 
understood its teaching. Calling his friend's attention to the 
old family Bible, he said to him : "That book is little read 
and less studied by a majority of those who make the greatest 
pretentions to a belief in its teachings. They seem to be afraid 
of it, and to discuss it is thought to be a sin. Like the un- 
profitable servant, they seem to think the best plan is to wrap 
their talent in a napkin and hide it. 

"Believing it our duty to find out the truth so far as we are 
able, I would call your attention, first, to the sermon on the 
Mount, which is claimed by the Christian world to be beyond all 
praise. Outside of the moral precepts it contains (and they 
belong to all religions), the most prominent features of the 
whole sermon are the inculcation of selfishness and a disregard 
of the duties of the present life. It foists egotism in the hum an 
heart, and would flatter man that he is on an equality with his 
Maker. It makes God haggle and barter with man, and offer 
him a bribe. In that short sermon, which can be delivered in 
ten minutes, there are eighteen premiums offered, and twelve 
threats made. 

"The 14th and 15th verses of the 6th chapter of Matthew 
are fair illustrations of the coax and drive style of the whole 
sermon. 

"'For if yon will forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father 
win forgive you also your offenses. But if you win n<>t forgive 
men, neither will your Father forgive you.' 



200 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"Here is a clear case of God's sovereignty being given over 
to his creature — man. If any act of God can be determined by 
any act of man, then God is not sovereign and man bolds tbe 
precedent. That Almighty God's will can be made subservient 
to a feeling engendered in the heart of sinful man is a travesty 
upon Omniscience. If you will forgive, God will forgive you; 
but if you will not forgive, God will not forgive you. Here the 
order of cause and effect is reversed, and God's will is made 
dependent upon a human sentiment. 

"A trade, a bargain, between God and man! 

"I once heard a good preacher say that man was the only be- 
ing in the universe who would stand up before God, shake his 
fist in his face, and defy him. How could such a rabid passion 
ever enter into a man except upon the idea of equality, and 
where could that idea come from except from the Sacred Vol- 
ume? The Sermon on the Mount is an exalted egotism. 
It is a placing of the finite above the Infinite — making God 
subservient to man. It does more: it promises rewards for do- 
ing one's duty, and offers bribes for the impossible. 

" 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the chil- 
dren of God.' 

"Why not simply, 'Blessed are the peacemakers'? Why the 
reward? Is not the self-consciousness of having made peace 
between enemies sufficient? 

"Rewards and punishments are the basic elements of the 
JSTew Testament teaching. 

" 'Love your enemies.' 

"This is a hard command, and there is much doubt as to 
the possibility of its uti 'possidetis, or appertainment. 

"A man may cease to hate, may forgive and let his enemies 
go their way; but to love them is beyond human nature. The 
Scriptures represent God, even, as continually working against 
his enemies, and devising means for their destruction. Jesus 
himself, who gave the command, never loved his, and never 
asked a blessing on them until he was helpless on the Cross. 
In his prime he hurled anathemas against them, and on one 
occasion said: 

" 'As for those my enemies, who would not have me reign over 
them, bring hither, and kill them before me.' 



The Teachings of Jesus. 201 

"Should a lawmaker give a command to others which he 
will not obey himself ? Does God violate his own laws ? Then, 
indeed, is he on a level with man. 

"Another objection to the teachings of Jesus is, his ignoring 
this world, and his utter repudiation of everything that is 
useful in this life. 

" 'But I say unto you, not to resist evil.' 

"Suppose men were to even attempt to follow this injunction, 
could they live in this world? It is useless to make comment 
on the absurdity of such a proposition. Life is a conflict, an 
everlasting war with evil. When evil preponderates in any- 
thing, destruction follows. To resist evil is the very essence 
of life. If this world, and life in this world, is unworthy of 
man's serious thought and attention, then God, in his creative 
acts, made a most lamentable blunder. 

"The whole tenor of the Sacred Volume, from the first plant- 
ing of the Garden of Eden down to the crucifixion of Jesus, 
is a detailed account of an ignorant, repentant deity who, in 
order to maintain himself, and support his throne, is compelled 
to exercise that arbitrary power which none can take from him. 
The banishing of the first family from the Garden ; the flood ; 
the destruction of the cities of the plain, and the sacrifice of 
his only begotten son, serve to show the makeshifts of an igno- 
rant god. The Jehovah of the Bible is only the blurred image 
from that materio-psychic organism ensconced within the cranial 
walls of one who had killed his man and yet had talked with 
God face to face. The God of the Jew r is simply what Moses 
would have been if he could. The great God of this universe 
is a different being from the Jehovah of the Old Testament. 
He manifests himself in every blade of grass, in every flower; 
in the birds of the air, and iii the fishes <>f the sea. Emerson 

goes even further, and says : 'The line doctrine of Omnipres- 
ence is that God reappears with all his parts in every mOSS and 

cobweb. 5 Ee it is whom Paul spoke of as the TJnknown God.' 
M;m will never know him. lie is too great, there is too much 
of him ever to be Inclosed in the skull of a man. That Jesus 
Chrisl was God is only the conoepl of men, who had become dis- 
satisfied with the God of Mo-.-; and whether they bettered it is 
to be Been in 8 further study of bis teachii 



202 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"Men are judged nowadays largely by the company they keep, 
and nothing can give stronger evidence of a man's taste than his 
daily associations. The sympathetic side of a good man's na- 
ture will naturally take him to the poor, the downcast, the 
ignorant, and the afflicted ; but when he deserts his best friends, 
and forsakes those who are in sympathy with him and would 
aid him in his work, to grovel with the canaille, the question 
naturally arises, 'Is this man the highest type of humanity?' 

"The first account we have of the manhood of Jesus in the 
gospel of Matthew is when John the Baptist heralded him to 
the world in terms which, to a man of refined feelings, ought 
to have secured to John a fast friend to the last day of his life ; 
for John, in his enthusiasm, made public announcement of him 
in these words : 

" 'I, indeed, baptize you with water unto repentance ; but he that 
cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to 
bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.' 

"And when Jesus went to John for baptism himself, John 
protested, and said: 

" 'I have need to be baptized by you.' 

"Was ever loyalty more directly submitted from one man 
to another? Can friendship extend further? Here was a 
holy man, the first organizer of a new religious rite, offering 
to stand aside, and to place another in his stead; to become 
secondary in his own work, to exalt another above himself. 
What is the plain duty of man to man in a case like this? 
What did John deserve at the hands of Jesus? What did he 
get ? Pitiful, sorrowful, ignominious to relate ! John fell 
under the ban of Herod, got into prison and was beheaded. 
Jesus Christ, your God-man, who censured others for not visit- 
ing those in prison, never went near him ; but what did he do ? 
Let the Scriptures tell : 

" 'Now, when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he 
departed into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in 
Capernaum, which is upon the seacoast.' 

"Abandoned his friend to the hot walls of a tropic dungeon, 
and during his entire imprisonment, which was about a year, 



The Teachings of Jesus. 203 

never sent a message of condolence, nor of inquiry as to his 
health or comfort. But even in prison, John never forgot 
Jesus, for he sent two of his disciples after hearing of his works, 
to inquire if he was really the Christ, or whether he should 
look for another. This would seem like a strange message, 
coming from one who had testified to the Sonship of Jesus, and 
proclaimed him as the 'Lamb of God who taketh away the sin 
of the world'; but when we consider that prison walls have a 
language of their own, which we learn to interpret in the dark 
solitude of friendless proscription, we may not marvel that 
John — even John the Baptist, as 'a prophet! yea, more than a 
prophet,' should translate the monotonous silence of his confine- 
ment into symbols of doubt. Yes, John doubted, and no won- 
der. He could not be sure; he wanted assurance from the lips 
of him he loved. The answer given to the messengers is char- 
acteristic : 

" 'Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen : the blind 
see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear; the dead 
rise again, the poor have the gospel preached to them. Blessed is 
he that shall not be offended in me.' 

"There is not an instance in the old Bible where Jehovah, 
the God of Moses, ever deserted a friend. Is the 'Son' a degen- 
erate, or has ingratitude become a virtue? We next hear of 
him as having a ridiculous bout with the devil, and 'From 
that time he began to preach.' Like all organizers of a new 
cult, Jesus felt the need of followers, and the first man 'called' 
is the most contemptible character in all the book. Petri-! 
That name, in the far distant future, when lying and thieving 
shall have become obsolete in the affairs of men, will be a 
byword and a reproach — a scandalization of the rock upon 
which the Christian Church is built. No structure can stand 
forever upon a foundation of falsehood. The Omnipotent Be- 
ing who set this universe in motion will not permit it. Peter, 
O Peter! Thou colossus of mendacity! Thou renegade, 
thou father of false pretense] Of what inconceivable wick- 
edness have men been guilty that thou shouldst be set over 
them for a spiritual guide? Peter, the pretender, who followed 
his Master in prosperity, and deserted him in adversity! Peter, 



204 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

the rock upon which the Christian Church is built, who fol- 
lowed 'afar off' when the Master was taken, and sat by the 
fire downstairs at the trial; who cursed and swore that he 
never knew the man! Peter, whom the Savior upon one occa- 
sion rebuked — as Satan. Peter, who never went near, nor in- 
quired one word concerning his Master from the time of his 
trial to his resurrection; yes, Peter, the liar, who had the 
effrontery to rebuke Ananias, into whose hands the keys of 
heaven were given, and who told a lie upon poor old Judas 
long after he was dead! Peter, I say, is the poltroon of the 
Bible, the most contemptible character in the whole book. 

"Matthew says that Judas took the money back to those he 
got it from and, repenting, went off and hanged himself. Peter 
says he bought land with it, and falling headlong burst himself 
open. Which is the more likely story? So much for Peter. 
If he repented, I am glad of it; if he reformed and became 
a truthful man, I am gladder still. Many there are who fol- 
low after Peter to this day, imitate and admire him, love and 
cherish his memory, and expect to enter heaven by the same 
means Peter avoided arrest at the trial of the Master. These 
people will plan a terrible retribution for the author of this 
enthymeme, and consign his soul to perdition; but truth is 
mighty and will prevail, falsehood will go back into the pri- 
meval Nothing, and sin and shame will pale in the radiant 
light of the God of truth. 

"A third objection to the teachings of Jesus is that he makes 
an impossible condition in the salvation of man. Instead of 
basing salvation upon an act, or actions, possible, at least, for 
every man to do, he bases it upon an emotion of the mind 
which it is not in the power of man to control: Faith in him 
and love to himself. Fidelity to his teachings, and that alone, 
is to give man a seat in the celestial choir. Wo matter if a 
man spends his whole life in doing good, never once having 
an evil thought, or committing an unlawful act; no matter 
how hard he may try to believe in the Triune Godhead, if 
he fails in the least bit to give absolute, unswerving assent to 
this dogma, he is consigned to eternal and everlasting torment. 
On the other hand, he may be a liar, a thief, a robber, a 



The Teachings of Jesus. 205 

ravisher of women, a murderer ; lie may be steeped in sin of 
every conceivable kind throughout a whole lifetime ; never hav- 
ing done a good deed in all the time allotted to man on this 
earth, never having had a single pure thought from the hour 
of his birth to a moment before death, — 

" 'An act of contrition flashing with the rapidity of lightning 
through the soul of a dying man. may utterly and entirely change 
the character of his soul and his relations to God, so that he who 
was before the enemy of God. a rebel, loathsome and deserving of 
hatred, becomes at the very next instant, by a sort of magic trans- 
formation, the friend of God. his loyal subject, beautiful and worthy 
of His love. In such a case as this, good and not good, obedient 
and not obedient, meet for Heaven and not meet for Heaven, are 
true of the same object within two seconds of fleeting time.'* 

"Stephen Girard, the millionaire philanthropist of the City 
of Brotherly Love, who, perhaps, made the only honest fortune 
ever accumulated in these United States; who left a monument 
of charity-work behind him unequaled in this world — a school, 
a home, food and raiment — for the homeless and fatherless 
children of Philadelphia, has been preached into hell by min- 
isters of the Gospel, whom this man's charity, this anti-Chris- 
tian's love of orphan children, had taken up out of the gutters 
and alleys of a great city and raised — fed, clothed, and edu- 
cated. They are obliged to do it or give up the Gospel of 
Christ ; Stephen Girard was an Infidel. 

"The fourth and last objection which I shall speak of in the 
teachings of Jesus is that he came for the purpose of saving 
only a few of the people of this world, leaving the others to take 
care of themselves as best they may. Missionaries may go into 
foreign lands and preach to the heathen, Christian ministers 
may insist that the Gospel of Christ includes every creature, 
and the Bible may be translated into every tongue that is 
Bpoken on this earth, but the words of Jesus himself are more 
in evidence than any theory of the Church, or Papal Hull issu- 
ing from the Vatican. 

"Thai the Gospel of Ohrisl does not include nil mankind is 
evidenced fn. m the general tenor of its teaching, but is more 



'Catholic Philosophy (Logic), Honyhurst - 



206 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

particularly marked in the directions given to the Apostles af- 
ter having received their commissions : 

" 'These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying : 
Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samari- 
tans enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel.' 

"Here is a positive command from Jesus, right in the be- 
ginning of his ministry, when there could he no question of 
his real presence, with all his faculties in mediis rebus, and not 
a doubt in the mind of any one of his apostles. How is this 
to be compared with that mythical command, after his resur- 
rection, when 'some doubted,' which says: 

" 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
creature.' 

"In one particular instance Jesus himself shows with what 
contempt and indifference he looked upon outsiders. 

"On the coasts of Tyre and Sidon lived a poor woman of 
Canaan. She had a daughter who was 'grievously troubled 
by a devil.' Jesus passing along that way, this woman ap- 
proached him in the interest of her daughter, and humbly 
begged him for help. He not only ignored her request, but 
refused positively to speak to her. The Book says, 'He answered 
her not a word.' She, in her distress, became persistent and 
importunate, thereby annoying his disciples, who, tiring of her 
entreaties, besought the Master to send her away. His answer 
to this request of his disciples shows that he did not consider 
this poor woman, at least, to be a subject of his mercy : 

" 'I was sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel.' 
"And, in a prayer to the Father, he said : 

" 'I pray for them : I pray not for the world, but for them whom 
thou hast given me ; because they are thine.' 

"The fourth chapter of Mark teaches very plainly that he 
did not intend to instruct the multitude to whom he preached, 
but rather to confuse them, for he says : 

"'To you (his disciples) it is given to know the mystery of the 
Kingdom of God: but to them that are without, all things are done 



The Teachings of Jesus. 207 

in parables ; that seeing, tliey may see and not perceive, and hearing, 
they may hear and not understand; lest at any time they should be 
converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.' 

"But the Syrophoenician woman was not to be deterred by 
the unkindness of the disciples, nor, as it appears, by the un- 
seemly speech of Jesus. She was in sore trouble over the afflic- 
tion of her daughter, and she was ready to sacrifice herself for 
the sake of her child. Then it was that she fell down at his 
feet and cried out, 'Lord, help me !' She actually worshiped him, 
and even after this homage, his answer to her was as coarse 
and churlish as the desertion of John in prison : 

" 'It is not good to take the bread of the children and cast it to 
the dogs.' 

"And only after this afflicted mother cowered and degraded 
herself to the level of dogs did he condescend to aid her. 'Yes, 
Lord,' she says, 'yet the dogs under the table eat of the chil- 
dren's crumbs.' This sharp retort, it seems, struck a vein of 
humor, scorn or pity, or whatever feeling you may call it ; 
for he said to her: 

•• 'For this saying, go thy way ; the devil is gone out of thy 
daughter.' 

"Pagan religions, in the estimation of Christians, have all 
been instituted, organized, and kept in operation by the devil, 
while theirs is the chant of angels and the voice of Almighty 
God echoing on forever by virtue of its lofty sentiments, its 
inherent beauty, and its unselfish love. Krishna, as you know, 
was the God incarnate of the Hindus, as Jesus was the in- 
carnate God of the Christians. They both taught men how to 
pray. 

"Jesus said: 

" 'Give us i h is day our daily bread.' 

''Krishna said : 

"'Lord, i do aol want wealth, aor children, dot learning.' 

".Jesus said : 

•• 'Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 1 



208 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"Krishna said : 

" 'If it be thy will, I will go to a hundred hells, but grant me this, 
that I may love thee without the hope of reward — unselfishly love 
for love's sake.' 

"Jesus said: 

" 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' 

"I know a good old man, a scholar, a gentleman, a preacher 
of the Gospel — who will not repeat that line in the Lord's 
prayer. He will not even talk about it. Can't you imagine 
why? What does it imply? I leave it to your own reflection. 

"One of the disciples of Krishna, the then Emperor of In- 
dia, was driven from his throne by his enemies, and had to 
take shelter in a forest of the Himalayas with his queen, and 
there one day the queen was asking him how it was that he, 
the most virtuous of men, should suffer so much misery : 

" 'Behold, my queen, the Himalayas, how beautiful they are ; I 
love them. They do not give me anything, but my nature is to love 
the grand, the beautiful ; therefore, I love them. Similarly, I love 
the Lord. He is the source of all beauty, of all sublimity. He is 
the only object to be loved : My nature is to love him, and, there- 
fore, I love. I do not pray for anything ; I do not ask for anythiug. 
Let him place me where he likes. I love him for love's sake. I 
cannot trade in love.' 

"Is there a sentiment in the New Testament as pure, as un- 
selfish, as exalted as this ? 'I cannot trade in love.' Is not the 
whole scheme of Christian salvation a trade between God and 
man? How dare the Christian missionary say to the Hindus, 
'Thou art anathema in the sight of God' ? But wherefore con- 
tend? I heard a good old Baptist brother, an educator of 
women, the head of a great institution of learning in the 
proudest State of this Union, say: 

" 'If I knew the Christian religion was a lie from beginning to end, 
I would not give it up.' 

"He was in love with Peter. The lantern of Diogenes will 
never shine in the face of such a man. Egotheism is the bed 
rock, the root and branch of Christianity." 



The Answer. 209 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE ANSWER. 

The schoolmaster's friend had been engaged in silent prayer. 
He had listened to this criticism, not in anger, nor with im- 
patience or disgust, but in amazement at the recusancy of hu- 
man reason. He sat face to face with an old man — a con- 
scientious, honest, truthful old man — a man who had spent his 
whole lifetime in the acquisition of knowledge, and in impart- 
ing it to others. He had been a teacher the better half of a 
century, and never had he turned off a boy because he did not 
have the means to pay for instruction. He had picked up young 
men, working at common labor for a pittance, and taught them 
to read, write, and cipher; taught them to be men, and he had 
seen many of them adorn the professions, and become highly 
influential citizens. He not only taught them books, but he 
gave daily lessons in morals and ethical culture. He was a 
friend to the poor, and especially to the young poor, who desired 
to go up rather than to stand still. Many a respectable teacher, 
competent lawyer, high-toned physician, and lovable minister 
of the Gospel owed their start and standing to the encourage- 
ment and aid of this old infidel schoolmaster. A few of the 
rigidly righteous frowned upon him, and regarded him as a 
"corrupter of youth," but the general consent of the com- 
munity in which Ik- was known gave the verdict of oddity. 
and not of vilipendency to his character. He had owned 
Blavea ;it one time, bul under bis stewardship they might have 
called dependent freedmen. Ho censured that law of the 
South which forbade tin- education of negroes. Be waa for 
upbuilding, elevating all mankind. Il<- was, withal, a very 
religious man. Ho believed in the One, Only, Almighty God, 
and to this God <»\ Knowledge and Power he rendered bia 
homage. He waa not ;i Christian, and this gave distrese to hia 
friend. 

The traveler, Bince ho had been with the Bchoolmaater, had 
Btudied hie (diameter closely. He knew that a belief in the 
Divinity of Christ could never he attained solely through the 
1 \ 



210 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

reasoning faculties. Men had to become as little children first. 
How was this octogenarian to be born again? If he had been 
a bad man, a drunkard, a roue, a scoffer even, he would have 
hope of touching the tender chord; but here was a clean char- 
acter — a true follower of the example and precepts of the One 
whom he denied; and this denial was a source of unutterable 
distress to the man who had learned to love him. How to get 
at this man's heart was the thing uppermost in the mind of the 
traveler. He would appeal to his reason, and try him with his 
own logic. If at all successful, he would, later on, try the emo- 
tional side of his nature. 

Rousing himself from his revery, and making a last silent 
invocation to the Source of all Light, he said to the school- 
master: "From the standpoint of a deist, your criticism is 
rational, logical, and conclusive; but an argument consisting 
of only two propositions, an antecedent and a consequent de- 
duced from it, is like a syllogism with one premise omitted — 
it ends in 'Paralogical doubt.' Enthymematical reasoning is 
the harlequinade of sophistry. It plays the Merry-andrew, 
and befuddles the intellect with its clownish tricks. In your 
exaggeration of man's vanity and egotism, you lose sight again 
of your own argument of the functional activity of brain-sub- 
stance. The moment you get away from the material, and come 
in contact with the spiritual, you begin to doubt the power of 
God. Your own admission makes man the largest and clearest 
image of God in all his works ; and yet you call Christianity an 
Egotheism, because it claims that God came amongst us in the 
shape of a man. 

"Bend your faith a little more in the direction of your scien- 
tific theology, and you will have less trouble with the Man-God 
of the Christian world. If the brain of the average man has the 
power, as you admit, and argue that it has, to collect and for- 
mulate into an individual substance or entity that which we 
call the mind, and that entity really is a part and parcel of 
God himself, then, by analogy, comparing the coarsest with the 
finest of human brains, where is the limit to God's power of 
making brain-substance fine enough to collect all his attributes 
within the compass of one human brain? The elephant and the 
humming-bird are made of the same material, yet I bo hum- 



The Answer. 211 

ming-bird's heart beats twenty times faster than the elephant's. 
The muscles of the humming-bird's wings contract, perhaps, 
five hundred times while the elephant's leg muscle contracts 
once. This little bird's wings flap so rapidly that they give 
out a musical note. This is the difference between fineness and 
coarseness. Eailroad bars and watch-springs are made of the 
same material. One railroad bar made into hair-springs of the 
finest watches would sell for enough to build the Union Pacific 
Road. It is only a matter of fineness. The Australian sav- 
age and Sir Isaac Newton had brain-substance very much 
alike, and of the same material. The difference in their minds 
is mainly a matter of fineness or coarseness of brain-substance. 
jNTow, if Sir Isaac's brain could collect so much more of the 
Divine attributes than that of the savage, where is the limit 
of God's power to refine brain-substance? I take you on your 
own grounds — we will argue from the same standpoint, and let 
reason be the arbiter. 

"We have the account of a man who, it is believed, had 
within himself every attribute of Almighty God. Knowing 
what we do about matter in its different states, I see no reason 
why, from your own point of view, the brain of Jesus Christ 
should not be fine enough to take in every attribute of the 
Deity, and make him God also. The same reasoning would 
make every man a demigod, and your thrust at Christian Ego- 
theism and man's egotism loses its bitterness, and places man 
in his right relation with his Maker. If Henry Ward Beecher 
laid aside his reason when he accepted the Trinity, ii was be- 
cause he had not studied the mutual relations of matter and 
spirit, the interdependence of one upon the other in the mani- 
festation of thought. You seem to be on the right track at 
times, Inn you Btop shorl of the consequenl of your own phi- 
losophy, [f God can impart a portion of his attributes to man 
without detracting from Bimself, why can He not imparl all? 
Don'1 you Bee thai your own philosophical deductions, carried 
to their ultimate conclusions, can make Chrisl God, and yel 
leave God intact, thereby making two Gods, and a1 the same 
time baving only one? Take a familiar example from the 
mathematics as an illustration: No Divine Power can set 
aside the law that nil tike angles <>[ a triangle are equal I" ivo 



212 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

right angles. This is a truth, as eternal as God is eternal. It 
existed before the world was, and will exist to all eternity. 
It is absolutely impossible that in any portion of the universe, 
actual or possible, that this truth can be a falsehood. It is 
susceptible of demonstration to the satisfaction of all cultivated 
minds. No man ever did or ever will doubt this truth whose 
mind is sufficiently developed and cultivated to comprehend its 
proof. It was a truth before any human mind ever recog- 
nized it, and will remain a truth after every mind on this earth 
is possessed of it. It is one truth among thousands, and it is 
only one truth, but it exists in China as well as in America ; 
in Ethiopia as well as in England. It is everywhere; still 
it is only one truth. You have it, but your neighbor has not. 
You give it to him, and then he has it, but that does not take 
it from you. You both have it; twenty, a hundred, a thousand 
men have it, still it is but one. 

"God is no more a Material Being than truth is a material 
entity ; then, why not two, three Gods : a million demigods, and 
yet but one God? Truth exists whether you know it or not; 
so with God. If it be desirable to know truth, it is equally 
desirable to know God. We can know Him a little just as we 
know a little truth. The Trinity is not a supernatural, un- 
reasonable dogma, and is no more of a mystery than truth is a 
mystery. If we accept the one, why not accept the other? 
You must give up your theory of the functional activity of 
brain-substance, or else admit our Blessed Trinity. 

"Having arrived at the Godhood of Christ by a process of 
reasoning similar to your own, your criticism of his teachings 
loses its acrimony and falls limp at your feet. Think over it, 
my friend, and let your reason look on both sides of every 
mooted question. I don't propose to preach you a sermon 
now. Perhaps, later on, I may have something to say about 
the ignorance of man and the folly of intellectual pride." 

The schoolmaster's mind had gotten on a different line of 
thought. His materialism was becoming more thoroughly mixed 
with spiritualism. His Gargantuan mass of brain-substance 
was dwindling away into a Liliputian morsel. He was begin- 
ning to see that, in the realm of thought, quality had more 
weight than quantity. Sir Isaac's brain was but little larger 



The Answer. 213 

than that of the Australian savage. An ounce of watch-spring 
was no bigger than an ounce of railroad bar. The humming- 
bird was much smaller than the elephant. Gross matter had 
bulk, fine matter had strength. The ant could carry a stone 
larger than its body, and the flea could hop a hundred times 
its own length. If the savage brain represented one unit, and 
Newton's brain represented a thousand units, what might not 
the brain of Christ represent? The thought was appalling. 
Doubter that he was, he began to doubt his doubt. To the God 
of his conception he granted infinite power over all possible 
things. In the brains of animals and men he saw a finite 
series of energies for the development of the Divine attributes; 
why not an infinite series? If the brain of Jesus ended the 
series, and that series terminated nowhere, what right had 
he to criticise his work upon earth? As well might he criticise 
God for the cyclone and the earthquake, the storm and the 
shipwreck. His explanation of the origin of evil, by a mal- 
adroit movement in forging the chain of cause and effect, pos- 
sibly, might have extended to the copying, the translating, and 
the interpretation of obscure passages in the Gospels, and left 
a misshapen link in his own mind which under a more careful 
manipulation of the reasoning powers might be straightened, 
polished, and set in harmony with the rest of the chain. This 
might be a possible condition, notwithstanding the inspiration 
of the writers, and the painstaking efforts of the copyists, the 
translators, and the interpreters. He admitted the gigantic 
power of error, and its exhaustless energy. His philosophy 
began to assume an ugly shape. 

These reflections wound themselves in and out of the old man's 
mind after the traveler had ceased to talk. He did not say a 
word. They both gol up and walked off into the fields and 
the woods. They viewed nature and talked about nature — 
the birds, the trees, the growing crops; ami when they go1 

tired, returned to the house, both of them in a good humor. 



214 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

GOING TO CHURCH. 

The next day was Sunday, and the schoolmaster asked his 
friend if he would like to go to the "preachment," as he some- 
times called it. The church building was but a short distance 
from the old man's residence, and the congregation, at that 
time, was presided over by an eminent divine who, in after 
years, became famous as the cure of the "Church of the Stran- 
gers" in New York City. 

As an additional tribute to the memory of a real character, 
whose mode of thought is largely depicted in this book, I may 
quote from a popular Sunday magazine in which the writer 
said: 

"Some years ago, among the churches to which the editor of this 
magazine ministered in North Carolina was one called 'Smith's 
Chapel.' It would seat about two hundred white and one hundred 
colored people, but in that climate a large part of the year a con- 
siderable portion of the congregation sat outside. The nearest house 
to this little chapel was the dwelling of a gentleman who was one 
of the most famous school-teachers in his native State. He was the 
college mate of James K. Polk, and the first time we ever saw him 
was when he had just completed a walk of fifty miles to meet his 
old college friend at the university. 

"Mr. John G. Eliot got his middle initial from his resemblauce to 
a ghost. He was usually known as 'Mr. Ghost Eliot.' Small, thin, 
washed out by multitudinous ablutions, built after the architectural 
design of an interrogation mark, with a disproportionately large 
head, the white hair on which was cropped to a length measured 
exactly by the thickness of the comb, he was a man whose appear- 
ance attracted attention everywhere. In some departments he was 
very learned, and his solid acquirements dominated his eccentricities 
and won for him the respect of a large class of citizens. He was 
what the colored people would call 'a powerful hearer of de Word.' 
Upon warm days he would walk into the meeting-house, throw his 
coat, if he had one, over the back of his seat, pull off his shoes to 
cool his understanding, and, propping his head against his left hand 
and supporting his left elbow with his right hand, he set himself 
to penetrate the speaker with augur eyes. The thing his soul most 
hated was nonsense. He had no kind of reverence. He would take 
up a slave or the Archbishop of Canterbury with equal patience, and 
by Socratic methods exhibit to him the ridiculousness of his errors. 



Going to Church. 215 

"If within the reach of practicability. Mr. Ghost Eliot was always 
at any service this editor held within his range. There are readers 
of this magazine in North Carolina who, when they peruse this 
article, will recollect how sometimes, when an assertion had been 
roundly made by the preacher. Mr. Eliot would rise in his place and 
say. 'Doctor, what is supposed among theologians to be the proof of 
that?' or, 'Doctor, I have heard that circumstance stated quite 
differently,' or, 'Doctor, that statement of yours has been publicly 
denied in the papers.' 

"There was no laughing. Mr. Eliot was the oracle of that neigh- 
borhood. There were boys about there whom his skeptical ideas had 
infected; there were people in that audience not to be surpassed in 
what is called 'a Boston audience'; and Joseph Cook never ran a 
severer gauntlet in the Athens of America than the young professor 
from the university ran in that chapel in the pine woods. No one 
laughed ; every one listened ; and if Mr. Eliot had frequently got the 
better of the preacher the preacher's occupation would have been 
gone. 

"To this day we feel the healthy influence of the instantaneous 
criticism. To this day, in preaching every now and then, it occurs 
to us that somewhere in the church there may be a 'Ghost Eliot,' 
who does not 'speak out in meeting,' but carries the objection away 
in his soul. Would it not be better for men to speak out?" 

They went to church, and the minister preached one of his 
soul-stirring sermons. With the eloquence peculiar to Deems, 
the preacher discoursed upon the folly of unbelief, and the 
discontent of philosophic serenit}'. Knowing his audience, lie 
descanted as few can in the arena of metaphysical subtleties. 
He spoke of the human mind and its limitations, its powerless- 
to grapple with the whole of truth. He admitted the great- 
ness of man, but he drew a line when it came to God. Man 
finite; God was infinite. A comparison between the two 
could not 1x3 made, yet the finite was the image of the infinite. 
and to gel a faint idea of God a man must know himself. If 
a grain of Sand COUld think, it mighl have a feeble coin-op- 
tion of the earth; if a mustard seed bad intelligence, it might 
conceive of the planel Jupiter. The sand La ;i miniature image 

of the earth, and the mustard Seed, at least, has the form of 

Jupiter. The sand is not only ;in image, hut it is a pari of 
the earth, and whilst ;i part, it i- a separate and individual 
part. So with man; if God ha- separated the civic ego from 

Himself, and made it an individual being, it ifl as much a 



216 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

separate personality from God as the grain of sand is a separate 
thing from the earth. And, being a separate personality, and 
at the same time an uncompounded essence, it must remain for- 
ever the same individual ego, incapable of absorption into the 
fountain-head, indestructible, immortal. 

Like the atom of matter, the civic ego may form combina- 
tions, but its individuality is never destroyed. States, govern- 
ments, armies, corporations, societies, families, all, are homo- 
geneous compounds of the heterogeneous hypostases. Person- 
alities may be as widely different as the ultimate particles of 
matter, but in blending one with the other we see temporary 
organizations as unstable and as easily disintegrated as the 
combinations of matter. 

Governments change, families run out, corporations melt 
away, and partnerships dissolve, but the basic intrinsicalities 
of all these remain, because they are from God. The atom of 
spirit is as indestructible as the atom of matter. Through all 
the multitudinous changes, combinations, and disintegrations 
of the spiritual forces of this universe the civic ego remains 
intact ; maintains its own individuality, defies time and change, 
and whether in one part of the realm of infinity or another, it 
is forever the one indestructible, unchangeable spark from the 
everlasting to the everlasting. Being made after the manner 
of God, a part of Himself, it is the offspring of God, and 
owes to Him obedience, reverence, and love. Separated from 
the Father, cast upon the sea of life without knowledge, with- 
out a guide, its business was to obey. Like a child without 
experience, it should not have asked for reasons ; temptations 
should have been passed by, and with a steady eye upon the 
command of God, man should not have strayed from the path 
of duty, should not have listened to the voice of the tempter, 
should not have fallen from his high estate. But, alas ! the 
temptation was irresistible, the fruit was pleasant to look upon, 
its taste was delightfully sweet ; knowledge took the place of 
innocence, and bitterness seated itself in the soul. "What have 
I done?" said the man in his agony. "I will hide from God; 
I will deny his acquaintance; I will associate henceforth with 
devils." But the all-searching eye was upon him. The cover- 
ing of fig leaves would not avail. He could not hide; neither 



Going to Church. 217 

can you hide, my friend. God, in his loving mercy, took pity 
upon his erring child. He provided a remedy for the pain of 
disobedience. That remedy is offered you to-day. Take it and 
all will be well; reject it and suffer the consequences. 

"For God so loved the world that be gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life." 

"What more can you ask ?" 

Deems always preached from his own pulpit at some par- 
ticular person in his audience ; hence, the one invariable direct- 
ness of his aim and the penetrative quality of his messages. 
When preaching to a strange audience he preached at himself. 
Somebody was always hit. He wasted no ammunition shooting 
in the air with both eyes shut. To-day he preached at the 
schoolmaster. Everybody understood it. Mr. Eliot did not 
speak out in meeting; but his eyes were moist. At the close 
of the sermon he met the preacher and introduced his friend. 
He spoke of him as a profound scholar, a brilliant talker, a 
good listener and, above all, as an humble Christian. The 
preacher shook his hand with the cordiality of a brother, and 
complimented him on the opportunity he had of knowing a rare 
character. The traveler said but little, yet his eye, his counte- 
nance, his actions showed the interest he took in his friend, and 
the profound regard he had for the ministerial calling. The 
rumor went round that he was a new preacher from a foreign 
land, and that Mr. Eliot had become much interested in the 
gospel-story as set forth by the stranger. There had been some 
talk in the neighborhood about the visitor at the schoolmaster's 
house prior to this Sunday meeting. His track had been seen 
in I he road, and much gossip had passed between neighbors as 
to who and what he was. Some said he was a shipwrecked 
sailor for whom the "Old Ghost" had provided a temporary 
home; others, that lie was a college professor making a tour <>1" 
the schools. Sonic of the evil-minded said he was an escaped 

convict, and thought Mr. "Ellet," as they called the school- 
master, ought to be prosecuted for harboring a criminal. Such 
is the covinous spirit of man, that even some of the good people 
of the community began to speak harshly of the "Ghost" and 



218 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

his protege. But after this meeting the discovery was suddenly 
made that the stranger was a gospel missionary — an itinerant 
evangelist of high repute, who had been sent to look into the 
spiritual condition of the noted infidel. A few days afterward 
the report went far and wide that Mr. Eliot's preacher, as they 
now called him, would preach at "Smith's Chapel" at the next 
monthly meeting. Nothing else was talked of. Most extrava- 
gant stories went out, as much in his favor as before against 
him. Visitors called, and messengers came to ask if he intended 
to preach at the next regular appointment. It was a leisure 
time of the year, the crops had been laid by, visiting was in 
order, and the spirit of gossip ran riot in the community. Old 
church members were excited, young converts were enthusiastic, 
and sinners troubled. Each family wanted to see its neighbors 
and discuss the new sensation. Eor three weeks the public roads 
and bypaths were lined with vehicles and pedestrians, all seek- 
ing vent to their pent-up excitement. As the day approached 
for the next meeting at the "Chapel" the rosy-cheeked girls and 
sunburnt boys vied with each other in their determination to 
look their best in the flimsy finery of the season. All was a 
flutter, a suspense, an expectation. The older people joined in 
the enthusiasm and laid plans by which all could get to the 
church. In the meantime the schoolmaster and his friend re- 
mained at home. All the exercise they took was their morning 
and evening walks. They were engaged in a further study of 
man and his motives. 



Starting in Life. 219 



CHAPTER XXV. 

STARTING IX LIFE. 

The weather was hot, and after an early breakfast on Mon- 
day morning following the Sunday meeting at the "Chapel," 
Mr. Eliot and his friend started off on their morning walk. 
The schoolmaster had thought a good deal about Deems' sermon 
of the day before, and had made up his mind to investigate 
more thoroughly the doctrine of Christian revelation; but this 
morning his mind had dropped back into the old rut of secular 
philosophy, and, remembering that he had left the youth upon 
the verge of manhood, or at that intermediate stage between 
youth and manhood where the individual is a mere cipher in 
the body politic, he commenced abruptly, as if they had just 
been discussing the subject, by saying: "If any period of life 
is more menacing than another to the character, happiness, and 
usefulness of the individual, it is that uncertain length of time 
between graduation, or what is called a finished education, and 
the establishment of one's self in business. Youth is bade adieu 
with less regret than boyhood, for youth has never yet been a 
period of felicity in the growth of man, and notwithstanding 
the dark midnight of manhood is now to be traversed with a 
feeble and flickering light — the light of inexperience — it is a 
welcome deliverance from the thraldom of juniority. With 
hope as a beckoning signal, with prudence as a guide, and with 
ambition for a goad to exertion, the young man of average 
intelligence will soon be on the highway of life; and, barring 
fatalities, he will be numbered with the thousands of respecta- 
ble, commonplace human units which continually recruit tin 1 
great army of civilized life. These men live and die. and make 
no impression upon the body politic save as additions to its 
bulk. They are what they are from the smooth and even causes 
of tranquil nature, and they ad as ballast to the Ship of State 

on the stormy seas of active life. 

"If we Investigate the causes which <cr\(> to make up this 

class, we -hull find them the same that operate to make heroes, 
statesmen, philosophers, and other exl raordinary characters; hut 
these f-auses are so evenly balanced in the formation <>f the 



220 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

ordinary individual that, from want of some cogent feeling 
impelling him to carry reflection into action, knowing what he 
ought to do, he still does nothing. Like a sluggish stream, his 
life current flows placidly along without a ripple or an eddy, 
serving its useful purpose without flood or tide, and at last 
arriving at that port where caste is broken, where beggar and 
king have no distinction. Men of great reasoning powers are 
notoriously oftentimes incapacitated thereby from energetic ac- 
tion; they balance reasons so nicely that no one of them out- 
weighs another; think so precisely over the event that they can 
come to no decision. With them, as with Hamlet, meditation 
paralyzes action. On the other hand, in the case of extraor- 
dinary individuals, one or more of these same causes so over- 
balance the others as to drive that particular person into deter- 
minations and actions which give him a name amongst men. 
Thus, the vaulting ambition of Napoleon set him above all men 
in the role of self-aggrandizement. The religious enthusiasm 
of Peter the Hermit enabled him to set on fire the heart of all 
Europe, to the destruction of millions, in what would now be 
considered a piece of absolute folly. The desire for wealth 
dominating all other feelings enables some men to accumulate 
princely fortunes ; the love of knowledge goads others to efforts 
in the line of mental culture, which not infrequently end in 
calenture of the brain. The love of adventure drives some men 
to the North Pole, and others to the heart of Africa. The 
inventive faculty being strongest in others, brings forth Edi- 
sons, Morses, Howes, and Whitneys. And so it is with sur- 
roundings, opportunities, and times. 

"Our own Washington, Lincoln, Grant, and Lee are heroes 
by force of time, circumstance, and opportunity; but some- 
thing within himself made Jackson the idol of his followers 
and the terror of his opponents. Burns was a poet in spite of 
the plow, and as the coulter turned the sod and crashed through 
the 'wee bit housie,' one of the finest sentiments ever engen- 
dered in the heart of man was evolved by this incident. The 
great cause here was innate, born into the man, and he — the 
'bard of passion and mirth' — was simply an effect, as helpless 
under the stimulus of the causes which produced him as the 
shipwreck is the effect of the storm, or that death is the effect 



Starting in Life. 221 

of disease. 'Perhaps no poet ever more truly sang "because 
he must" than Burns.' Cause and effect is the unexceptionable 
law of the universe, and it works in man and his motives, his 
will and his actions, as invariably as it works in the machine or 
the tidal wave. It is folly to speak of a man as self-made. Xo 
matter who, when, or where he may be, the individual and 
everything connected with his personality are effects. Some- 
thing or many things antedating him, working in harmony or 
discord, evolve the man, and the man is the product of this 
something or these many things. Theologians admit that God 
himself is a necessary Being, and being without cause, he is 
independent of cause and therefore free; but no caused being 
can possibly be free, for that would make him independent of 
cause and self -existent. 

"As illustrative of this homely philosophy, we will take the 
young doctor at the bedside of his first patient. We will grant 
him an active mind, thoroughly cultivated, drilled in all the 
technicalities of that pretended science; a thorough anatomist, 
a master of physiology, knowing the nature of drugs and their 
therapeutic application, versed in toxicology, with all the rules 
of diagnosis at the tip of his tongue, a bacteriologist who can 
distinguish the germ of typhoid from yellow fever; with his 
diploma, his State license, his medicine chest, and self-confi- 
dence. We will send him into the bedroom of a young mother 
with a squalling, kicking, sniveling three months' old infant in 
her lap, into whose ear she has exhausted the vocabulary of 
baby talk, and with tears in her own eves she has decided that 
of all mothers she is the most wretched. 'Oh, doctor/ she Bays, 
'please do something for my baby. I know he is Lining to die. 
He has colic or appendicitis or something. I believe he is 
going to have a fit. I- it brain fever? Look a1 his eyes; be 
won't nurse dreadful — he Is all swelling up. Do, for heaven's 
sake, do something for him.' And the young doctor, full of 
himself, full of theories, full of what he conceives to be the 
Bcience, if not the art of healing, endeavors to gel in a word, 
but the wails of the mother and the yells of the youngster make 
his questions inaudible and unintelligible. In the din and con- 
fusion be is about to ransack his medicine case for a drug, hut 
fortunately for the child, just at this moment an old neighbor- 



222 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

hoed woman walks in, and, with the intuition of experience, 
takes the infant on her lap and begins to undress it. As a 
fastening to an undergarment she finds a misdirected pin mak- 
ing savage jabs into the delicate flesh of the unfortunate babe. 
Here is cause and here is effect, the same as in the case of the 
old woman and the young doctor. Experience was the cause 
which enabled the old woman to find the pin, and ignorance or 
want of experience was the cause which made a fool of the 
doctor and played havoc with the mother's peace. Is the doctor 
free to cure disease ? Just as free as the wild bird is to fly ; but 
the bird must have wings, and the doctor must have knowledge 
and experience. 

"Success or failure in life is just as dependent upon cause as 
this infant's pain was dependent upon the prick of a pin; but 
to ferret out cause is beyond the ken of man. If we could know 
causes, we could determine effects, and that man who has the 
greatest insight into cause has the most power to direct events. 

" 'Knowledge is power.' This trite saying is applicable to 
every event of life, even the minutest ; but to make it effectual 
in the avoidance of error, it would include omniscience, and 
that would be destructive to man. Ignorance, then, is not the 
unmitigated evil ; error is not the sole bane of human life. But 
for these two there could be no progress, no advancement in 
civilization, no evolution in the scale of being. The incentive 
to exertion is that something is lacking — that we want some- 
thing which we have not. One of the greatest needs of life is 
knowledge, but not all knowledge ; another great need is money, 
but not all the money. A part only is suited to the finite crea- 
ture; all, solely, belongs to the Infinite — to God. If each and 
every one possessed unlimited knowledge, and had an unlimited 
amount of money, neither knowledge nor money would have 
any value. 

" 'Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise' is another 
saying as true as the pet aphorism of Bacon. Many things it 
is better never to know, but all attainable and all useful knowl- 
edge should be sought by every one. A recent tragical incident 
or accident which caused the death of one man, the injury of 
several others, and great destruction of property, was caused 
by the ignorance of a boy whose curiosity to see a locomotive 



Starting in Life. 223 

flatten a spike tempted him to place it on the railroad track. 
If the boy had understood a few of the simplest laws of natural 
philosophy he could have had his spike flattened with no result 
except a slight jar to the locomotive. But, ignorant of the law 
of bodies in motion, by a mere chance, he placed the spike on 
the off rail, with the result of throwing the engine from the 
track and killing the engineer. Not knowing that bodies in 
motion move in a straight line forever until interrupted by 
some other force, and not knowing that railroad cars turn a 
curve by lengthening the periphery of the outside wheel and 
shortening that of the inside, thus enabling the off wheel to 
circle a greater curve in the same time that the inside wheel 
travels a shorter curve, and thereby enabling them to keep up 
with one another; and not knowing that the moment contact 
between the wheel and rail was interrupted by the spike, the 
increased length of the periphery of the off wheel was reduced 
to the length of that of the inside wheel, thereby destroying the 
force which kept the engine from going in a straight line, the 
result was, that when the off wheel fell from the rebound given 
by the spike it missed the track and the engine was ditched. 
Had he known that every car wheel is beveled on its face, and 
that this bevel enables the car to turn a curve by increasing 
the diameter of the outside wheel, and the sole power to turn 
a curve lies in that increased diameter, and the moment contact 
with the rail is interrupted the virtue of that increased diameter 
is destroyed, and had he been still determined to have the spike 
flattened, he would have placed it on the inside rail of the curve. 
But had he known all this he would not have risked the spike at 
all. And so with the young doctor: had his knowledge and 
experience extended to the possibility of a stray pin causing the 
child's pain and the mother's distress, he would have searched 
for cause instead of thinking to counteract effect by inefficient 
and dangerous means. So it is in every department <>f life; 
ignorance is the chief cause of failure, of accident, <>f crime 
even. Suppose men could see the final outcome of evil actions — 

of sin — would they commit it \ 

"But, again, imagine b world without sin! According to 
Christian philosophy, without sin there would be do repent- 
ance, and without repentance there could be no rejoicing in 

heaven. Is this celestial abode of the Christian the reflected 



224 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

image of human ignorance, or is it a tenancy — the effect of 
sin — as its formal cause? In a previous conversation you ad- 
mitted that it was impossible for your mind to conceive of an 
effect without a cause. Now, if heaven is not self -existent, 
it is caused. If caused, and has existence, i. e., if it be a real 
place, it is the effect of at least two causes — an efficient and a 
final cause. Christian theology teaches that the final cause 
of heaven is a place of abode for human beings after life on 
this earth is ended; for the Savior said: 'I go to prepare a 
place for you.' It is evident from this that although the place 
may have been in existence, it was in no condition for regener- 
ated souls; it had at least to be prepared — refurnished, per- 
haps — cleaned up, it may be — who knows? 

"The next question is, Who gets there? A great deal of 
rancor exists over this question, and especially amongst those 
who are surest of heaven. From the Christian evidence, a 
logical argument will make the answer easy. Take the last link 
in the chain of cause and effect, which is your arrival inside 
the Golden Gates, and follow it back link by link to your ad- 
vent into this world, and you will find your seat in heaven to 
be the effect of forgiveness, and forgiveness the effect of re- 
pentance, and repentance the effect of sin, and sin the effect 
of ignorance, and ignorance? The self-evident minus quantity 
with which you entered the world. The chain is complete, 
the goal is sure, universal salvation is the fiat of Almighty 
God," 

Here the traveler felt a shock, as if he had been struck. 
Where the blow came from he could not tell. He stopped 
still in the road. They stood face to face arguing. 

"Your chain," he continued, "has a spurious link. In your 
argument, repentance is bound to sin by a thread. You must 
forge another link before it will hold. Between sin and repent- 
ance comes conscience. Conviction of sin must necessarily 
precede repentance, for no man can repent unless he has some- 
thing to repent of. Repentance, therefore, is not the immedi- 
ate effect of sin. Conscience is the next link in the chain 
which prepares the sinner for heaven." 

"You tie the chain in a knot," replied the teacher, "by sub- 
stituting cause for effect. If any faculty of the soul is with- 



Starting in Life. 225 

out cause, that faculty is conscieuce. Wherever mentioned, 
and by whomsoever quoted, it is represented as cause. It is 
never spoken of as effect, and the different opinions concerning 
it show that it is not to be relied upon. Cruden, even, says : 

" 'The conscience also, even of the best, is now and then erroneous 
and doubtful.' 

"It is not a link in the chain; it is an outside cause. It 
parallels Elihu in the council of Job's comforters, and should 
be treated as Elihu was treated. It is an interloper — a dis- 
turber of the peace — it knows too much. George Eliot said: 

11 'Conscience is harder than our enemies, 
Knows more, accuses with more nicety.' 

"In The Giaour it is represented as cause : 

- Nor ear can hear, nor tongue can tell 
The tortures of that inward hell !' 

"Milton called it 'The hell within him,' and said: 
" 'Let his tormentor, conscience, find him out.' 

"Ovid said : 

" 'Despotic conscience rules our hopes and fears.' 

"Washington called it 

" "That little spark of celestial tire.' 

"Shakespeare said: 

'•'Conscience is a blushing and shame-faced spirit that mutinies 
in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles.' 

"Goldsmith said: 

"Conscience i< :i coward, and those faults it lias net Strength to 

prevent, it seldom has justice enough t<» accuse.' 
"In Richard III. : 

"'Conscience is ;i word that cowards use. devised ;it first to keep 
the >ir..ni: in .iwe.' 

"Byron wrote: 

"'Whatever creed be taught or land be trod, 
Mini's conscience is the oracle of G06V 

ir. 



226 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"James McCosh says, in the Princeton Review: 

" 'Regarding God as having produced the original germ and guid- 
ing and guarding the evolution of it, we may surely regard the con- 
science as possessing not only original but hereditary authority, as 
the vicegerent of God, and speaking to us in the name of him who 
has been our Maker and is our Governor and is to be our Judge.' 

"They all represent it as cause, and you say, 'JSTo man can 
repent unless he has something to repent of ; thus intimating 
that conscience is the cause of repentance. Now, suppose the 
conscience to be good, can a good conscience cause repentance ?" 

"It is the accusing conscience," replied the traveler, "that 
causes repentance." 

Teacher. — Then, without conscience, repentance would be 
impossible ? 

Traveler. — With a good conscience, repentance is unneces- 
sary, and without a bad conscience or an upbraiding conscience, 
repentance is impossible. 

"Very well, then," replied the teacher. "Do away with con- 
science altogether, either by force of reason, or, if that be im- 
practicable, by continuing to sin until that officious monitor is 
seared or silenced, and the sinner will revert to absolute holi- 
ness; for his accuser is hushed and he cannot be convicted." 

"I don't very well see that," replied the traveler. 

Teacher. — Here, don't you see that conviction of sin is a self- 
conscious act in the soul of the sinner — that nothing can make 
the sinner conscious of sin except his own conscience? 

Traveler. — I admit that a man's conscience is the monitor 
that tells him he is a sinner, and convinces him of his sinful 
state. 

Teacher. — Then, without conscience the sinner could not 
recognize his sin, and he would have no accuser. 

"Even in that case," replied the traveler, "he would none the 
less be a sinner." 

"How," asked the teacher, "can sin exist where there is no 
possible means of recognizing it? To the blind man light has 
no existence, and to the deaf, sound is nothing. I admit that, 
to the man with a conscience, sin is a reality, just as light is 
a percept to the man with eyes; but light and sound cannot 



Starting in Life. 227 

affect the blind and deaf; neither can sin affect the man who 
has no conscience. Conscience, then, by the clearest logic is not 
only the cause of repentance, as you admit, but is the cause of 
sin." 

Here the traveler turned on his heel and walked off. For a 
moment he was stupefied. How could he argue with a man 
who trampled in the dirt his most sacred convictions ? His own 
conscience had been upbraiding him for twenty centuries, and 
now to have it thrust upon him as the cause of all his misery 
was too much ! 

Was it possible that he was carrying in his bosom an undy- 
ing worm? Could it be that the cause of his pain was being 
nurtured in his own soul? Rid of his conscience, would he be 
free? He had never thought of it in that light before. He had 
repented in sackcloth and ashes, yet he had not been forgiven. 
But his was an exceptional case. He would be free at the 
second coming of Christ ; he would wait ; he would bear his bur- 
den as best he might. 

The schoolmaster walked along beside the traveler in silence. 
He had presented his side of the argument, and he was broad 
enough to respect the feelings and thought of his friend. He 
never insisted upon others adopting his views further than 
their own reason would convince them. He was tolerant even 
to the whims and prejudices of all mankind. Their conversa- 
tion on this subject ended with their stop in the road, and 
they were now back at the house. They spent the balance of 
the morning in reading. After dinner the schoolmaster brought 
up the subject of matrimony, and like many others who have 
no experience in a certain line, thought he knew all about it. 
His views are given in the next chapter. 



228 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK XXVI. 

MARRIAGE. 

Instead of a languorous siesta, after the manner of a semi- 
tropic lazzarone, the postprandial diversion of these venerable 
schoolmen took place in the shade of a large oak tree in the 
center of the yard. Temperate in their habits, frugal in their 
diet, and free from the pernicious influence of that entire 
class of semidrugs so much indulged in by civilized man, such 
as tea, coffee, tobacco, wine, spices, and condiments of every 
kind, their bodies were cool and their minds clear. The mental 
hebetude incident to hot weather and epicurism was unknown 
to both of them. Their minds were as active on a sultry day 
as in the midst of frost, and just now, in the cool shade of the 
tree, their bodily rest was enhanced by the intensity of their 
mental activities. The schoolmaster opened the conversation 
in rather a dolorous vein, for he had been thinking much, in 
the forepart of the day, over his past life and the lonely condi- 
tion of his declining years. He had asked himself many times 
before, "Why is it that I have never married V 

Had he made a proper introspection he would have seen, as 
Rondibilis, the physician, saw in the case of Panurge, that 
many causes are continuously in active operation as deterrents 
to wedlock; and the principal cause in the case of the school- 
master was his studious habits, his nice balancing of reasons 
and his philosophical contemplations. "Nay," said the physi- 
cian to Panurge, "in such a studiously musing person, you may 
espy so extravagant rapture of one, as it were out of himself, 
that all his natural faculties for that time will seem to be 
suspended from each their proper charge and office, and his ex- 
terior ceases to be at a stand. In a word, you cannot otherwise 
choose than think that he is, by an extraordinary ecstasy, quite 
transported out of what he was or should be ; and that Socrates 
did not speak improperly when he said that 'philosophy was 
nothing else but a meditation upon death.' Therefore is it 
that Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, tutoress and guardianess 
of such as are diligently studious and painfully industrious, is 



Marriage. 229 

and hath, been still accounted a virgin. The Muses, upon the 
same consideration, are esteemed perpetual Maids; and the 
Graces, for like reason, have been held to continue in a sempiter- 
nal pudicity." 

"For a number of years," began the teacher, "my constant 
thought was, that sooner or later, I would fall in love with some 
good woman, marry her, and raise a family of my own. I 
look back now at the golden opportunities neglected, the waste 
of moments precious in the life of every rational creature, and 
contemplate with horror the decrepitude of age, unrelieved 
by the sympathy of a solitary soul. It is a sad mistake for a 
man or a woman to neglect or refuse a partnership which, at 
its worst, is infinitely better than the solitariness of celibacy. 
The greatest regret of my life is that I never married." 

His companion immediately took up the subject, and said: 
"I believe the universal rule in human experience is, that 
men and women who live to be old, and never marry, are sure 
to regret it." 

"And, oftentimes," replied the teacher, "those who marry 
do the same thing." 

"Yes," said the traveler, "regrets often follow marriage, 
but occasionally two people join themselves together and live 
a lifetime with no regrets for the step taken ; while, on the other 
hand, there is, perhaps, not an instance in human experience 
where a man or woman living to old age, single, never experi- 
enced regret." 

"If your postulate be true," replied the teacher, "it makes 
a very strong point in the argument for marriage, for where a 
certainty of regret overtakes the celibate, there is at least a pos- 
sihility of no regret where the party marries." 

"The possibility," said the traveler, "certainly overmatches 
i lie probability, but the probability of regretting the step comes 
so near obscuring the possibility that it is almost a game of 
chance which one shall outweigh the other." 

"This brings me," replied the teacher, k *t<> what I bad in 
mind to say, and I am sure if men and women had t<> give 
reasons why they married, and especially why they joined i hem- 
selves to that particular person, the answer would he as unin- 



230 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

telligible to others as unsatisfactory to themselves. If it were 
possible for any effect to exist without cause, this marrying and 
giving in marriage would seem to be as causeless as the afflic- 
tions of Job by the hand of God. At the root of every marriage 
we can safely count on the one universal, essential and legal 
cause, without which marriage would be impossible; but this 
cause acts independently of marriage, and whilst marriage could 
not be consummated without it, the cause is not at all depend- 
ent upon marriage for its first-fruits, and would act the same 
if the institution had never been established. Sexual attraction 
is a law unto every creature that has life, and this law, in force 
as it now exists, makes the verbal command, 'Increase, multi- 
ply, and replenish the earth,' a mere lavishment of words. If 
the command had been the reverse of what it is, another crawl- 
ing tempter would have entered the Eden of human delight and 
spoiled the romance of Platonic love. 

"I look upon marriage as a social institution for the better- 
ment of human conduct, and as it is still 'honorable in all/ 
perhaps it is the best solution of the sex problem. But to the 
query, Why do men and women marry ? 

"At the bottom of every courtship is a fool's paradise, an 
ideal Utopianism in which the young people dream and build 
castles, imagine all sorts of impossible conditions, look at one 
another through rose-colored lenses, and lust after an ideal, 
rather than an individual. IST6 young man is in love with the 
girl he is courting, and no girl is in love with the man she 
calls sweetheart. Both are in love with their own ideals, and 
they are so blinded as to see that ideal in the person they hope 
to marry. Strip the imagination of this romance, and court- 
ship and marriage would be reduced to a beastly passion. To 
simply join a man and woman together in a legal compact is 
not marriage in its essential feature. It may be lawful and 
respectable, but the very essence of marriage is love — blind, 
foolish, unreasonable love — love that will stand the test of time, 
circumstance, and conduct. This kind of love has no philoso- 
phy; it is not even on speaking terms with reason. It is a 
wound — a puncture from one of Cupid's arrows. It never 
heals ; it festers and makes a running sore. Reason must take a 



Marriage. 231 

back seat at the marriage feast. Sentiment rules, or should 
rule, when the marriage bell peals its joyous note. Love, like 
the mole, is blind, and properly so, for neither can live in the 
light. Cupid is a mischievous god and loves fun. He is not a 
philosopher, and when the sage meets him in debate he is gen- 
erally met with an argument like this : 'To argue with me is 
to contend with sport, and to make yourself disagreeable to 
society.' 

" 'There are other demons in our brotherhood more suited 
to the philosopher — Flagel, for instance; he is the soul of spe- 
cial pleading, and the spirit of the bar. He composes the rules 
of court, invented the law of libel, and that for the imprison- 
ment of insolvent debtors ; in short, he inspires pleaders, pos- 
sesses barristers, and besets even the judges. It is he whose 
acquaintance the philosopher should seek. I am more useful to 
society; I am not a reasoner, I am the demiurge of volup- 
tuousness, or, to express it more delicately, Cupid, the god of 
love; that being the name for which I am indebted to the 
poets, who, I must confess, have painted me in very flattering 
colors. They say I have golden wings, a fillet bound over my 
eyes ; that I carry a bow in my hand, a quiver full of arrows on 
my shoulders, and have withal inexpressible beauty. I make 
absurd matches; I marry gray-beards with minors, masters 
with servants, and American heiresses with penniless European 
nobles. It is I who introduced into this world luxury, de- 
bauchery, games of chance, and chemistry. I am the author 
of the first cookery-book, the inventor of festivals, of dancing, 
music, plays, and the newest fashions.' 

"This recital of Cupid may be taken for what it is worth. 
but in seeking the causes of marriage, we may not do better than 
accept it as truth; for the very nature of the compact precludes 
the possibility of making it amenable to reason. 

"The love of Eeloise for Abelard is the most striking in- 
stance of the power which the mischievous god can exerl over 
the fairest and most intellectual of womankind, A thousand 
years agone, yet the French people <>f this day hold festivals 
and cantatas in honor of the unparalleled devotion of this gifted 

hut ill-fated woman. 



232 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"The legal compact between these two victims of Cupid's 
aim, made void by the savage revenge of her uncle, had no 
healing balm for the wound inflicted. Haeckel's 'elective af- 
finity' of two differing cells — the sperm-cell and the egg-cell — 
held no place in the undying affection of this martyred wo- 
man. In a case like this, 'supernatural' causation seems to 
mock every natural explanation. The imagination of Byron 
enabled him to crown Haidee with a circlet of orange blos- 
soms, chaste and pure as the affection of Heloise for Abe- 
lard. This semisavage maiden, reared in the barbaric splen- 
dor of her island home; alone save a retinue of menials to do 
her bidding, educated in the simplicity of nature; with no 
teacher but nature's God; radiant, with the bloom of youth — 
but hold ! Byron tells it better : 

" 'Her hair's long auburn waves down to her heel 
Flow'd like an Alpine torrent which the sun 

Dyes with his morning light — and would conceal 
Her person if allow'd at large to run ; 

And still they seem resentfully to feel 

The silken fillet's curb, and sought to shun 

Their bonds whene'er some zephyr caught began 

To offer his young pinion as her fan. 

" 'Round her she made an atmosphere of life, 
The very air seemed lighter from her eyes, 

They were so soft and beautiful, and rife 
With all we can imagine of the skies, 

And pure as Psyche ere she grew a wife — 
Too pure even for the purest human ties ; 

Her overpowering presence made you feel 

It would not be idolatry to kneel.' 

"This maiden, I say, pure and unsullied as Nature's God 
could make her, beholding Juan shipwrecked upon her island 
shore — half dead, beautiful, helpless, sick and friendless — 
she, in her mental and spiritual solitude, believing her father 
dead from his long absence, and craving the fruition of her in- 
born capacity, became the natural and easy prey of the love- 
god's pitiless shaft. The arrow went deep into her soul, the 
wound became septic and unhealable. A purer joining of flesh 
with flesh never went out from cathedral door than the plight- 



Marriage. 233 

ing of this young maiden's faith with that of her lover. Upon 
the return of her father, endeavoring to plead her cause, she 
said: 

" 'Oh ! clearest father, in this agony 

Of pleasure and of pain — even while I kiss 
Thy garment's hem with transport, can it be 
That doubt should mingle with my filial joy? 
Deal with me as thou wilt, but spare this boy." 

"And when the irreconcilable fury of old Lanibro prompted 
him to rashness, her pleadings turned to defiance: 

" 'On me,' she cried, 'let death 

Descend — the fault is mine: this fatal shore 

He found — but sought not. I have pledged my faith: 

I love him — I will die with him : I knew 

Your nature's firmness — know your daughter's too.' 

"And Haidee died the most touching, the most pathetic death 
ever conceived and recorded by man. 

"Cupid is not overnice in his aim. The fairest victims are 
sometimes overlooked, while his arrow is sent into the heart of 
the bully, the coarse — the commonplace. Xone are so hard as 
to turn its course or blunt its point. Men cased in the shell of 
the armadillo are as vulnerable as the most delicate female. 
High, low, educated and ignorant, giant and dwarf, rich and 
poor, reformed and deformed, handsome and plain, all entering 
the Zodiacal light under the sign Sagittarius are liable to be 
hit. 

"Samuel Johnson, one of the most eminent English writers 
of the eighteenth century, had inherited from his ancestors a 
scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of medicine to 
remove. His features, which were originally noble and DOt 
irregular, were distorted by the malady. 1 1 is cheeks were deeply 
scarred. He lost for a time the sight of one eye; and he saw 
but very imperfectly with the other. His manners were eccen- 
tric; his grimaces, his gestures, his muttering sometimes di- 
verted and sometimes terrified people who did not know him. 
II*' was always boorish, and for a time in his early manhood 

his eccentricities Bavored of insanity. One day, in the presence 

of a coarse, buxom widow, old enough lor his mother, the fickle 



234 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

god took aim at Johnson's heart and the arrow transfixed both 
him and the widow. A marriage followed that was unaccounta- 
ble from its incongruity, but it was sealed with the stamp of 
the Archer, and death itself was unable to break the compact. 
On her monument he placed an inscription extolling the charms 
of her person and her manners; and when, long after her de- 
cease, he had occasion to mention her, he exclaimed, with a 
tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, 'Pretty creature !' 

"But Cupid does not draw his bow upon every courting 
couple. He often makes pretense to shoot, and instead of an 
arrow he hits with a puff-ball. These are marriages of con- 
venience : mercenary, conventional espousals — not a making of 
flesh one flesh, and of bone one bone. The slight shock from 
the puff-ball disappears with the honeymoon, and the couples 
doubt being struck at all. These marriages are the patrons of 
the divorce courts, and abettors in the elopements of other peo- 
ple's wives and husbands. There are other so-called marriages 
in which Cupid has no hand — where the suitor works the prob- 
lem out in his own mind, and concludes, from a mathematical 
calculation, that he has found his affinity; also, in the case of 
the strong-minded woman, who, ignoring the hints and prompt- 
ings of the heart, boldly assails the marriage problem from the 
standpoint of reason and what she calls common sense. The 
trouble in these cases arises from the premises taken. Igno- 
rance here will destroy the 'best laid schemes o' mice and 
men' — likewise of women. One prick from Cupid's arrow is 
worth all the philosophy, all the reason, and all the common 
sense that can be brought to bear on this subject. The trouble 
with philosophy, reason, and common sense, is it is impossible 
for them to get at the bottom facts. In seeking a life partner, 
the man, especially, starts out with two ideals in his mind — a 
mental or spiritual, and a physical ideal. A veil of conven- 
tionalities, impossible to penetrate, obscures the one, and an 
exposition of the other would become a felo-de-se to his ideal. 

"Men and women recognizing the difficulties attending all 
marriages not guaranteed by the bend of Cupid's bow, have 
devised all manner of schemes to prevent or ameliorate the un- 
happiness and other evils attendant upon a mere secularizing 
of the marriage compact. The most outre and outrageous con- 



Marriage. 235 

ceptions have been put into practice. For thirty years, in 
Oneida County, ]\ T ew York, a most revolting experiment in 
stirpiculture was carried on by men and women of the highest 
intellect and culture. It failed because of its antagonism to 
nature and its moral nastiness. Polygamy is almost as old as 
the human race, and free-love is advocated now by blue-stocking 
women and depraved men. The cicisbeo was at one time as 
necessary to the Spanish and Italian married woman as her 
servants and her finery. Swift gives a lively account of the 
women of Laputa in their efforts to vary the monotony of a 
life of ease and luxury; for this is a country of philosophers, 
where everything is done according to science and mathematics. 
If they would, for example, praise the beauty of a woman, or 
any other animal, they describe it by rhombs, circles, parallelo- 
grams, ellipses, and other geometrical terms, or by words of art 
drawn from music, needless here to repeat. 

"In the description of his visit to the 'Flying Island,' upon 
which the king and his court reside, he makes Gulliver say : 

" "My first dinner consisted of two courses of three dishes each. In 
the first course there was a shoulder of mutton cut into an equi- 
lateral triangle, a piece of beef into a rhomboid, and a pudding into 
a cycloid. The second course was two ducks trussed up in the 
form of a fiddle, sausages and puddings resembling flutes and haut- 
boys, and a breast of veal in the shape of a harp. The servants cut 
our bread into cones, cylinders, parallelograms, and several other 
mathematical figures. 

"'The wives and daughters lament their confinement to the island, 
although I think it the most delicious spot of ground in the world; 
and. although they live here in the greatest plenty and magnificence, 
and arc allowed to do whatever they please, they long to see the 
world, and take the diversion of the metropolis; which they are not 
allowed to do without a particular license from the king: and this 
is not easy to be attained, because the people of quality have found, 

by frequent experience, how hard it is to persuade their women to 

return from belOW. I was told thai a great court lady, who had 

several children— is married t<> the prime minister, the richest sub- 
jeci in the kingdom, a very graceful person, extremely fond of her. 

and lives in the finest palace Of the Island — went down to La-ado 

on the pretense of health, there hid herself for several months, till 

the kin- Sent ;i warrant t.» search for her; and she was found in an 
Obscure eating-house all in rags, having pawned her clothes to main- 
tain an old deformed fOOtman, who beat her every day, and in whose 



236 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

company she was taken, much against her will. And although her 
husband received her with all possible kindness, and without the 
least reproach, she soon after contrived to steal down again, with all 
her jewels, to the same gallant, and has not been heard of since. 

" 'These Laputians are not only philosophers and scientists, but 
they are proficient in sorcery and magic; and the legend is that 
Cupid made such havoc with their studies that a celebrated magician 
was employed by the government to catch and seal the mischievous 
chap up in a bottle, and cast him into the sea.' 

"Moating round with the waves for months and years, the 
bottle, at last, was washed ashore upon the coast of Spain. 
LeSage tells, in Asmodeus, how a student of Alcalda set him 
free by breaking the bottle, and since then Cupid has given the 
Laputian coast a wide berth; hence, the disaffection of the 
women, who, everywhere and in every clime, prefer love to 
science and philosophy." 



Divorce. 237 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

DIVORCE. 

It was getting time for their evening walk, and after this 
serio-comic discerption of the marriage problem had quieted 
the schoolmaster's nerves and settled his dinner, he became im- 
patient for that regular exercise which had, for so many years, 
contributed to his physical health and promoted the vigor of 
his active brain. His companion was always ready for a move, 
and, as it were, by mutual consent, without the trouble of a sug- 
gestion even, they both abandoned their seats under the shade 
and quietly strolled down the road. 

The teacher had been in a repentant mood most of the day. 
Whenever he seriously considered his unwarrantable neglect of 
one of the most important duties and privileges of man, and 
found that time had made it impossible for him to reform, he 
quieted his conscience by swallowing a small dose of repentance. 
This, in his estimation, was only a placebo, but it was better 
than nothing, for the wisest physician is not willing to quietly 
fold his hands and say, "Nothing more can be done." To get 
his thoughts a little off from what he now considered the great 
error of his life, he introduced the subject of divorce, and said : 

"Few social questions are surrounded with greater difficulty 
than this. In Roman law marriage was regarded as a volun- 
tary union which might be terminated at any time by consent 
of the parties. No legal process was required, and until the 
time of Justinian divorce by consent of both parties does not 
appear to have been subject to any restriction. Divorce by 
the husband against the wish of his wife was a power much 
more likely to be abused than that of dissolving marriage by 
mutual conseni ; and yet, although the legal righl was recog- 
nized, it is said not to have been acted on for a period of five 
hundred years. Harshness in the exercise of the power was con- 
demned by public opinion, and Bometimes punished by the 
authority of censors. L. Antonius, a senator, was expelled from 
the senate for a harsh divorce of a young wife. The effeel of 
the spread of Christianity was to reinvest marriage with the 
religious character from which, in the Later law of Rome, Li 



238 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

had completely escaped. At a still later period Justinian en- 
acted that persons dissolving a marriage by mutual consent 
should forfeit all their property and be confined for life to a 
monastery, which was to receive a third of the forfeited prop- 
erty, the remaining two-thirds going to the children of the mar- 
riage. This severity, so much at variance with the Koman 
spirit, indicates the growing power of the clergy. These prohi- 
bitions were repealed in the next reign. It is a remarkable 
illustration of the Roman view of marriage that, in view of 
what must have been the great social evil of capricious divorce, 
the right of either party to dissolve the marriage was never 
successfully questioned. From the pure Roman to the canon 
law, the change is great indeed. The ceremony becomes sacred, 
the tie indissoluble. Those whom God has joined, let no man 
put asunder, was the first text of the new law of marriage, and 
against such a prohibition social convenience and experience 
pleaded in vain. To this day there is a kind of social ostracism 
in the minds of the great majority of Christian people toward 
those who take advantage of the divorce courts. Holding mar- 
riage to be a divine institution, they repudiate the right of men 
and women to sever, by legal process, a union sealed by divine 
ordinance and made indissoluble by religious authority. Here, 
in my opinion, has originated the great cause of divorce. 

"That principle of resistance which alone makes it possible 
to live in this world is roused into action by every restraint, 
whether it be for good or evil. Where the least restraint is, 
there we find the least resistance. The principle is worldwide, 
and applies equally to the physical and spiritual forces through- 
out the whole creation. Tell a man, a woman or a child not to 
do a certain thing, and the first impulse is to do that very thing. 
If our first parents' attention had never been called to the for- 
bidden fruit, the probability is it would have escaped their no- 
tice ; but the moment they were told not to touch it, and threat- 
ened with death if they did, and especially after being assured 
that no penalty would follow, but, instead, they would become 
wise, human nature would have been at fault had they not 
yielded. The only regret with me is that they had not eaten 
more for my benefit ! 



Divorce. 239 

"This myth only illustrates the universal principle of resist- 
ance, which is essential to the preservation of life. In addi- 
tion to the stirring up of this principle, the conviction that 
wedlock is indissoluble holds out the strongest of all temptations 
to the perverse; they indulge without restraint in acrimony, 
and all the little tyrannies of domestic life, when they know 
that their victim is without appeal. If this connection were 
put on a rational basis, each would be assured that habitual 
ill-temper would terminate in separation, and would check 
this vicious and dangerous propensity. 

"A system could not have well been devised more studiously 
hostile to human happiness than our present marriage system." 

The traveler had been quietly listening to this ascription of 
cause and proposal of remedy for an evil which had defied 
every conception of man for its alleviation, and he chuckled 
inwardly as he reflected on that transcendentalism which, in its 
depreciation of experience, loses sight of the relation which 
facts and phenomena sustain to principles. It amused him to 
see with what fluency a man could discourse upon a subject 
with which he had no experience. 

"If it be true," he said, "that the heart of man naturally 
delights in liberty, and hates everything to which it is confined, 
it is also true that the heart of man naturally submits to neces- 
sity, and soon loses an inclination, when there appears an abso- 
lute impossibility of gratifying it. How many frivolous quar- 
rels and disgusts are there, which people of common prudence 
endeavor to forget, when they lie under a necessity of passing 
their lives together, but which would soon be inflamed into the 
most deadly hatred were they pursued to the utmost, under the 
prospect of an early separation? We must consider that noth- 
ing is more dangerous than to unite two persons so closely in 
all their interests and concerns, as man and wife, without ren- 
dering the union entire and total. The least possibility of a 
separate interest must be the source of endless quarrels and sus- 
picions. The wife, not secure of her establishment, will still 
be driving some separate end or project; and the husband's, 
being accompanied with more power, may be still more danger- 
ous." 



240 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"Your remarks," replied the teacher, "would seem to ignore 
the very essence of marriage, and expunge from the compact 
the only halter worthy of being worn by man and wife. If 
the nuptial tie is to be severed by every petty annoyance of life, 
then let it snap at once; or, better still, never enter into it. 
Indissoluble marriage, instead of reconciling men and women 
to the matrimonial yoke, is the direct means of causing unsuit- 
able, incompatible, and unhappy marriages, and causes more 
separations, more bickerings, and more conjugal infelicities 
than all other causes put together. If divorce was absolutely 
free, at the will of either party and without legal process, it 
would remove the cause of divorce by making the matrimonial 
compact as difficult to enter into as it is now difficult to get 
out of. Facility of marriage makes desire for divorce. Man 
naturally values a possession according to the difficulty of ob- 
taining it. If the young wife knew that her happiness depended 
entirely upon the love of her husband, she would be more so- 
licitous of the love-god's wound. She would nurse it faithfully ; 
she would see that it never healed; she would study his whims 
and caprices, his likes and his dislikes. She would be as polite 
to him as she is to her neighbors and her servants, and would 
make her home so pleasant that clubs and street gatherings 
would be left to bachelors and widowers. The young woman, 
before her marriage, would cultivate those graces which would 
insure an unhealable wound in the heart of her suitor, and 
instead of the poutings and jealousies which excite in her lover 
a sense of mortification and regret, she would endeavor to show 
him that she. is a prize worth winning. She would not criticise, 
she would study him; she would never say, in her heart, after 
an imaginary slight or unthinking remissness on his part, 
'Never mind! when I get that knot tied I will make you pay 
for this.' She would be hard to get, and would be valued ac- 
cordingly. This is the best means of ruling a husband. 

"I admit that it is possible for some wives to bring their 
husbands into subjection by force, but ever afterward her 
respect is gone, and her love is changed into pity and con- 
tempt. He obeys because his spirit is broken, and he buys 
peace at the price of manhood. Love is dead on both sides 



Divorce. 241 

and the marriage is turned into a legalized concubinage. Di- 
vorce is vastly preferable to a case like this. 

The traveler, remembering his own unhappy matrimonial ex- 
perience, and numbering it amongst the many causes of his 
past and present afflictions, had but little heart to contend for 
the divine origin of the compact. "But," said he, "if divorce 
was made absolutely free at the will of either or both parties, a 
certain number of men and women would make a traffic of 
marriage, and with them the institution would become a legal- 
ized prostitution." 

"To prevent such an abuse of privilege," replied the teacher, 
"I would limit the license to the repair of mistake only, and 
after one honest effort to mitigate the evil of a first blunder, 
I would put a stop absolutely to such libertinism by attaching 
a penalty sufficiently harsh as to deter all such people. For 
the first offense I would confine the culprit in State's Prison, 
at hard labor, for a period of ten years, and for the second I 
would double the time and make it unpardonable." 

Here they met a boy on horseback who seemed to be much 
in a hurry, for he was galloping along posthaste apparently 
unconscious of the possibility of any other person being on 
the road, until he suddenly came to a halt at the side of the 
schoolmaster, who got a dab of mud in the face from the sud- 
den stop of the horse. "Howdy, Mr. Ellet," said the boy; 
"me gran'sur sont me over to 'no' ef it ar a fac' dat de noo 
preecher is er guine ter preech at de chap'l nex' rig'ler meetin'- 
day, an' ef he guine ter lecture on de sin ob igner'nce as da sa 
he is: me gran'sur wants ter 'no'." 

Tlii- was a very ignorant boy who lived with an old Igno- 
ramus of a grandfather — his own parents being dead. Mi-. 
Eliot had often tried to persuade the old man to send the 
boy to school, but he had contended that education was of 
no use, as "hook-larnin" had spoilt many a good farmer to 
make a poor preacher or a shiftless schoolmaster— in proof of 
which ho affirmed that a three-rail fence would keep "The 
Ghost" out of his own field for a whole year. 

"Sammie" (the boy's name was Sam Pateh), "tell your 
grandfather to come out to the chapel and hear what can be 
16 



242 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

said on the subject of ignorance, and perhaps he may be in- 
duced to send you to school; and you come too, for we ex- 
pect a treat that day." 

"Thankee," Sammie said, and with a quizzical glance at the 
stranger he galloped off. Mr. Eliot waved his hand at the 
boy, when he and his friend turned round and walked back to 
the house. 



Raising a Family. 243 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

RAISING A FAMILY. 

It was near sunset when Mr. Eliot and his friend got back 
to the house, and both of them being prudent in their habits 
and abstemious in their diet, decided to forego supper this 
evening, and spend the remaining hours before retiring in the 
simple and rational pleasure of conversation. 

The night was calm and warm, the sky cloudless and the 
moon bright and silvery. The solitude of a bachelor's coun- 
try home, rendered more lonely by the occasional hoot of the 
owl and the chuck-wills-widow of the Carolina goat-sucker, 
was eminently suited to philosophic contemplations or the 
reveries of Persian castle-building. In either line, the school- 
master was "neither lag nor lame," but on this particular 
evening he was eager to debate a subject in which he was much 
interested, but of which he had little experience. It is true that 
he had been thrown with children all his life, but his authority 
over them had been confined to the schoolroom, and while 
he had discovered many defects in the home training, it is 
doubtful whether his plans would eliminate the evils which the 
combined experience of mankind had failed to cure. With his 
wonted appeal to judgment and reason, he opened the conver- 
sation by saying: "The young man has now arrived at the 
most important stage of his worldly existence, and if failure 
overtaken him here, his career had better never have begun. 
But we will assume thai he is an average success, and discuss 
the causes, motives, influences, and surroundings which con- 
tribute to the most important end in life. 

"That the family relation is the most normal condition possi- 
ble for the human being, is the testimony of the accumulated 

experience of all men, ami when two young people form a part- 
ner-hip which brings them bo near to a oneness a- thai of mar- 
riage, they have started out with the best possible prospect of 
fulfilling the requirements of nature, and of bringing happi- 
to themselves. The family necessitates the home, ami the 

home makes the State. A man may man:' along with- 

out a home, hnt that woman does not exist, whether married or 



244 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

single, whose greatest craving is not centered upon a home of 
her own. Homeless, she is like a ship without a rudder, and 
the older she gets the more she is buffeted by the storms of life. 
'Home, sweet home' is an angel song in the ears of every woman. 

"Settled in their own home, the young man and woman have 
entered upon their real life-work, and the change is so great 
that a new existence appears to have been entered into. The 
change for the woman is more radical than for the man, and 
this is strictly in accordance with the physical and mental evo- 
lution of her organization. From a maid, she becomes a matron, 
and with this change she becomes almost a different creature. 
Her life is centered upon new objects, new aspirations, new 
hopes. Like the vine, she begins to twine around her support, 
and her life, for the nonce, is centered upon the one object — her 
husband. Love, in all its lavishment, is her dowry, and she is 
as happy as her nature will admit of. To please him is her 
greatest enjoyment, and to help him is her highest ambition. 

"He returns her affection, and the recording angel smiles — 
sometimes with a cynical smile — as the 'Book of Life' is opened 
and a new account entered. The account grows as the family 
grows, and the debit and credit sides each have long columns 
to add up at the close of life. 

"With the first baby a new factor enters the domestic house- 
hold to make a more radical change in the thoughts, actions, 
and aspirations of both parents. Life has been transmitted, 
and they see a reproduction of themselves. Pleasure begins 
anew in a current never before experienced, and a murky stream 
of trouble flows beside the enchanted brook. It is the finest 
baby that ever came into the world and the only one. 

" 'A charming, little, tiddy, iddy, bit of mother's bliss ! 
A tiny toddles, sweet as flowers of Spring! 
A precious popsy wopsy — give its mammy, den, a kiss ; 
A pretty, darling, itsy, witsy t'ing!" 

"The language spoken between mother and babe is neither 
translatable nor subject to any rules of syntax, but is truly 
'Conscience viewed as the internal repository of the laws of 
right' — a veritable Synteresis, in which philosophy can take no 
part. It is here that the mother gets recompense for the pains 



Raising a Family. 245 

of maternity, and this dowry she can no more divide than she 
can divide the cost of obtaining it. It is her right and her 
dower, with which no man can interfere, and from which the 
father can only turn away with a smile. It is the universal 
Volapuk, understood by mothers and babes alone. The 'goo-goo/ 
the crow, the smile of the infant, as the mother tosses, and 
tickles, and shakes, and 'boo-boos' into the eyes, the mouth, and 
ears of her own precious darling — this unpronounceable, un- 
translatable 'baby-talk' is the joint tenancy of motherhood and 
infancy. It belongs to no other phase of life, and it terminates 
as it began, only as an episode in the evolution of human ex- 
istence. 

"Very soon a different line of forces begins to invade the 
home, and the young couple are beset with temptations they 
never dreamed of before; and to combat the evils and promote 
the good which so mingle in the family where children are to 
be raised, taxes the moral and physical powers of both mother 
and father to their uttermost. The children are to be fed, 
clothed, and educated — a task Herculean — yet entered into with- 
out a thought of its difficulties. Each one seeks the best means 
at his command, and ever after believes his plan the best. It is 
a sad comment upon the spirit of truth to see with what diver- 
sity of thought, feeling, and action men and women arrive at 
the coveted goal. The old question of Pilate may well come in 
here: 'What is truth?' As regards the rearing of children, 
mothers and fathers are ever ready to assume the divine pre- 
rogative, and say, 'I am the truth !' 

"The poor man, with ambition to succeed, feels that truth 
lies at the end of a hard day's labor, and with this thought his 
little children are encouraged, and coaxed, and oftentimes driven 
to physical exertion which ends in the dwarfage of both body 
and soul. This thraldom leaves an indelible stain upon the 

mind, and men bo reared remember with horror their early life, 
and ever afterward look for truth in the opposite direction. 
The rich man, with ambition for his children's welfare, )<><> fre- 
quently see- truth at the terminal end of his bag of gold, and 

with the mistaken idea of the power of money, lavishes thai 

with all its attendant evils. Others gel it into their heads that 



246 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

what is popularly called education is the summun bonum in 
human life, and sacrifice all their energies to the realization of 
this doubtful good. As a financial measure, time and money 
spent in the acquisition of book learning is the poorest of all 
investments. The college-bred man has a poor chance of em- 
ployment — not on account of competition — but because of the 
small demand for his goods. The professional man is in de- 
mand, but competition makes success very doubtful. Education 
is the evil star which lures to destruction many a frail craft 
sailing on the foggy waters of ignorance. Like many other 
costly acquisitions, it is valued most by those who have the 
least." 

Traveler (with a humorous twinkle in his eye). — "I am sur- 
prised at you, my friend. You are veering away from your 
established principles, and making concessions that, carried out, 
as you carry out all your conclusions, would envelop your whole 
system of philosophy in a cloud of Cimmerian darkness. You 
either reason falsely or you attempt to erect a solid structure 
upon a bed of sand. Is it possible that your loadstar has de- 
veloped into an ignis fatuusf Was Bacon mistaken when he 
said: 'Knowledge is power' — or, as Festus said to Paul: 

" 'Art thou beside thyself — hath much learning made thee mad?' " 

"Indeed," replied the teacher, "I am not mad, but speak 
forth the words of truth and soberness. 

"Knowledge is power, whether Bacon said so or not. The 
trouble with me is the want of it. Ignorance is power, and it 
was this ignorance of the real value of book learning which 
caused me to offer sacrifice at the altar of that false god. I 
know better now, but the knowledge came too late for my best 
interests. This is why I would caution parents against pushing 
their children too hard at school. 

" 'There is a way which seemeth right unto a man ; but the end 
thereof are the ways of death.' 

"Nothing more forcibly exhibits the wisdom of Solomon than 
this commonplace mot. After getting all the knowledge we can, 
the amount is so small that we feel ashamed of the time and 
toil expended in the effort. 



Raising a Family. 247 

"If a man wants to know how little he knows, let him write 
a composition on any subject he may choose, and if he wishes to 
know how much his neighbors know, let him ask them for 
information. Knowledge is a pitiless master, a siren song that 
lures to destruction. The fruit of the tree, though sweet to the 
taste, is indigestible, and leaves a mental dyspepsia which noth- 
ing but the waters of Lethe can heal. Let us leave the subject. 
I am heartily sick of the treadmill that turns out knowledge in 
such grudging morsels, and holds in store such mountains of 
ignorance." 

Traveler (seriously). — "The greatest error of all the rest is 
the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowl- 
edge — for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowl- 
edge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appe- 
tite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and de- 
light ; sometimes for ornament and reputation ; and sometimes 
to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction — and seldom 
sincerely to give a true account of these gifts of reason to the 
benefit and use of men ; as if there were sought in knowledge a 
couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a 
terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and 
down, with a fair prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud 
mind to raise itself upon — and not a rich storehouse for the 
glory of the Creator and a relief of men's estate. 

"Christ does not represent heaven as a college for the learned ; 
therefore, the rules of the Celestial Legislator are rendered as 
clear to the simplest understanding as to the deepest. And let 
me here, my friend, invite you to observe that He who knew 
most of our human hearts and our immortal destinies did not 
insisl mi this intellectual culture as essential to the virtues that 
form our well-being here, and conduce to our salvation here- 
after. Had it been essential, the All-wise One would not have 
elected humble fishermen for the teachers of IIi> doctrine, in- 
stead of culling Sis disciples from Roman portico or Athenian 
academe. Thai which Plato and Zeno, Pythagoras and Socrates, 
could iM't do, was done by men whose ignorance would have been 
b byword in the schools of the Greek. The gods of the vulgar 
wen- dethroned; the face of the world was changed! This 



248 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

thought may make us allow, indeed, that there are agencies 
more powerful than mere knowledge, and ask, after all, what is 
the mission which knowledge should achieve ? 

"The Sacred Book tells us even that ; for after establishing 
the truth that, for the multitude, knowledge is not essential to 
happiness and good, it accords still to knowledge its sublime 
part in the revelation prepared and announced. When an 
instrument of more than ordinary intelligence was required for 
a purpose divine, when the Gospel, recorded by the simple, was 
to be explained by the acute, enforced by the energetic, carried 
home to the doubts of the Gentile, the Supreme Will joined to 
the Zeal of the earlier apostles the learning and genius of St. 
Paul — not holier than the others — calling himself the least, yet 
laboring more abundantly than them all — making himself all 
things unto all men, so that some might be saved. The ignorant 
may be saved no less surely than the wise; but here comes the 
wise man who helps to save ! And how the fullness and anima- 
tion of this grand presence, of this indomitable Energy, seems 
to vivify the toil, and to speed the work ! 

" 'In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, 
in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils 
in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils 
among false brethren,' 

"Behold, my friend ! does not Heaven here seem to reveal the 
true type of Knowledge — a sleepless activity, a pervading 
agency, a dauntless heroism, an all-supporting faith ! — a power, 
a power indeed — a power apart from the aggrandizement of 
self — a power that brings to him who owns and transmits it but 
'weariness and painfulness; in watchings often, in cold and 
nakedness' — but a power distinct from the mere circumstance of 
the man, rushing from him as rays from the sun ; borne through 
the air and clothing it with light, piercing under earth, and 
calling forth the harvest ! Worship not knowledge, worship not 
the sun, O my friend! Let the sun but proclaim the Creator; 
let the knowledge but illumine the worship !" 

The pious itinerant, overcome by his own earnestness, paused ; 
his head drooped on the shoulder of his friend, and both of them 
were long silent. The habitual turn of a philosophic mind at 



Raising a Family. 249 

length, quelled the emotional storm in the schoolmaster's breast, 
and he gave his thoughts once more to the child and its man- 
agement. 

"If," said he, with the calmness of a philosopher, "if parents 
could once recognize the fact that children are children, and 
not grown people — that their minds are as immature as their 
bodies, and that their thoughts are the product of a growing- 
brain, much unnecessary solicitude would be saved the parent, 
and much happiness left the child of which it is now deprived. 
One of the greatest mistakes a parent ever makes is in trying 
to enforce obedience where obedience is impossible. They try 
to make their children mind — a hopeless and impossible task ! 
A child cannot mind, and if it could, the very act of minding 
would destroy the child. If it were possible for every command 
and every threat made by the average mother of a family of 
children during one day to be recorded as spoken, she would 
deny that she ever spoke such words, and be indignant at such 
an accusation. 

" 'Mind your books' was an old-time ukase of the country 
schoolmaster, bawled out every few minutes during school hours. 
The school-children minded their books about like the little 
mind their mothers. 

"Xothing can more forcibly illustrate the fiendishness of mis- 
directed parental authority than an incident which came un- 
der my observation a few years ago. Being in a village one 
Sunday afternoon, I had a mind to step over to a friend's house, 
tli inking to spend an hour in pleasant conversation. The gen- 
tleman was sitting en his porch superintending the play of bis 
own children with half a do/on of their little neighbors. So 
intent was he in directing their pleasures that little attention 
was given to my presence. I sat twenty minutes Looking on, 
when I got ii)) and deliberately told a falsehood to gel away 
withoul seeming rude. During the twenty minutes I watched 
the children closely, and if they attempted to do a single thing 

which they OUghl QOl to do. 1 failed lo B66 it. \oi leSfi than 

two commands and four objections wen- Issued by this good 

parent every minnle while I remained. They mustn't do this 
and they mustn't do that. They mUSl play as lie directed. His 



250 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

intentions were good, but nothing ever more forcibly impressed 
me with the truth of the old Portuguese proverb, that 'Hell is 
paved with good intentions.' The children were literally in tor- 
ment. They tried to slip off into the back-yard, but he called 
them back. Every suggestion that one of them made was ob- 
jected to. If they played 'tag,' they must play it with the 
thought of a gray-beard. If they attempted 'hop-scotch,' they 
must hop on the left foot ; if 'hide the switch,' they must hide 
it in a particular manner. After a while the largest girl began 
to sulk and vowed she would play no longer. It was an object- 
lesson worthy of the huzza of Mephistopheles. 

"On another occasion I spent a week at the house of a friend 
whose wife was an invalid. The oldest daughter was house- 
keeper, and the youngest child a little girl of three years. One 
day at the table the child asked to have two spoons. Her sister 
objected, and the little girl was carried from the table in a tan- 
trum. The father said nothing. Three times a day for four 
days this scene was reenacted. On the fourth day, the father 
quietly asked what objection there was to the child's having 
two spoons. Then the older sister flared up and tossed a second 
spoon to the child. The father told her to pick the spoon up 
and hand it to her, and said : 'I have just been waiting to see 
if you would ever see the folly of your ways, but it seems that 
common sense has no place in your mind.' It was a severe re- 
buke, but perhaps a necessary one. He then turned to the child 
and asked her in a kindly and coaxing manner if she didn't 
want two cups. She said yes, and when she had gotten two of 
every piece on the table, she was happy; and the beauty of it 
all was, she never asked for two spoons, or two cups, or two of 
anything else again. She was satisfied. Now, which was the 
better plan? Is there any harm in a little child's having two 
spoons? 

"This is a fair sample of the contradictions, austerities, and 
tyrannies exercised by grown people over the young, and the 
worst of it all is, it often extends to corporal punishment of 
the most brutal kind. And when I think of the whip as a means 
of making children mind, language fails me. Why is it that 
Christian people set more store by the savagery of Solomon 



Raising a Family. 251 

than the benevolence of Jesus? Did the Savior ever tell you 
to whip a child? Those who resort to the whip acknowledge 
thereby that their resources are piteously limited. And, be- 
sides, no parent ever whipped a child for the child's good alone. 
This is a bold assertion, but a very true one. There is always 
an element of spleen, of revenge, of retaliation in the act. A 
father after beating his son into silence commenced to blubber 
over his barbarity, and asked the boy if he knew why he 
whipped him, as if he expected him to cower and lick the hand 
that smote him. The boy, ignoring the driveling sentiment of 
his misguided parent, quietly looked him in the eye, and said : 
'Because you are the biggest.' The boy gave the true reason, 
and every parent knows it if he will but think. 

" 'Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn' ; 

and the brutality of grown people to children makes the devils 
in hell rejoice." 

The clock struck ten, and the schoolmaster and his guest 
retired. 



252 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 

MANAGING A FAMILY. 

On their morning walk next day the schoolmaster, not satis- 
fied to drop the subject at what was said the evening before, 
commenced by quoting the familiar saying: 

" 'Little children are little trouble and big children are big trouble.' 

"Hardly a parent/' he continued, "after their children be- 
gin to grow up but will subscribe to the truth of this well- 
known saying, yet there are many troubles connected with in- 
fancy and childhood that most fathers and every mother will 
call 'big,' — yea, very big! Sickness is one of them. The 
mother who has the misfortune to lose her first baby has rea- 
son, as Job had, to anathematize the day of her birth and to 
regret the hour in which she became a mother. 

"Rasselas upbraided the Sage in Johnson's tale of the Prince of 
Abyssinia for giving way to grief after discoursing so learnedly 
and dispassionately on the 'conquest of passion' ; but the phi- 
losopher silenced him in his answer: 'Sir,' said he, 'you are 
come at a time when all human friendship is useless; what I 
suffer cannot be remedied, what I have lost cannot be sup- 
plied. My daughter, my only daughter, from whose tenderness I 
expected all the comforts of my age, died last night of a fever.' 

" 'Every one can master a grief but he that has it' ; but that 
man knows little of the human heart who will either chide or 
attempt to console a parent in his sorrow for the loss of a child. 
Philosophy closes her eyes when the iron enters into the soul. 

"That mother is blest, and that child is thrice blest, whose 
lot falls to the care of a wise and conscientious physician. 
Half the trouble in the daily routine of human ailments comes 
from fright, and the wise mother selects her medical adviser — 
not because he parts his hair in the middle and wears patent- 
leather shoes, nor because he pays more attention to the well 
baby than he does to the sick one; but for his knowledge, his 
honesty, and his ability to distinguish between a serious and a 
trivial ailment. Many doctors overrate small discomforts, and 
add to the uneasiness of parents for the sole purpose of magni- 
fying their own ability. Others, through ignorance, fail to 



Managing a Family. 253 

recognize serious sickness and soothe parents into a false se- 
curity where real danger exists. Xothing can be more fatal 
to the happiness of a household than an incompetent or dis- 
honest physician. 

"Xext in order and importance is the schooling period; 
and here I would enter my protest against the modern meth- 
ods of education. Hand in hand with the humbuggery of 
medicine comes the quackery of the schools. Teachers and 
parents are both responsible for this waste of energy and in- 
hibition of a sound mental development. Children are over- 
loaded with books, and encouraged to study, or rather to cram 
for an exhibition or prize, merely to tickle the fancy of a 
vain parent or beef-witted teacher. 

"Up-to-date teaching is an effort to put more into the pupil's 
head than it will hold, and the consequence is, it runs over with 
froth. Another mistake is in the endeavor to combine pleasure 
with study. The senses are appealed to more than the thinking 
powers, and object-lessons speak to the eye with disastrous 
results. Picture-books, slates and blackboards should be dis- 
carded from the primary schools. When the eye is depended 
upon, the mind is left in darkness. Object-lessons are instruct- 
ive only to the mature mind. I have ever found it a vain 
task to try to make a child's learning its amusement; nor do 
I see what good end it would answer were it actually attained. 
I knew a little fellow who had been taught to read before he 
knew the alphabet. He had been so cheated by the figures and 
pictures marked on the blackboard by his up-to-date teacher 
that, actually, he thought words had shapes. He believed 
that a verb looked like a jack-rabbit. 

"Another silly thing is trying to teach a child its own 
language by means of a book called grammar. Just as well try 
to teach liiin how to growl There never was a grammar of any 
language prior to the days of Julius Caesar, and yet his writ- 
ings are classical, and i he orations of Cicero have never been 
Mil -passed for beauty of diction. 

"The firsl essentia] in the education of a child is to force 
into his mind a few arbitrary substrata, without which book 
learning would l>o impossible — such as the alphabet, the numer- 
als, how to read simple sentences, and how to count, [mme- 



254 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

diately after this, set him to using his thinking powers. Mem- 
ory will take care of itself. Mental arithmetic and a primary 
speller are about all the books a child needs for the first six 
months of its school life. If object-lessons were essential to in- 
struct the mind, how in the world would the blind ever be taught ? 

"I am in favor of free and compulsory education. The 
Government ought to have charge of the schools, and it should 
establish one grade of schools where wages are paid to the 
pupils. This should be a school of Labor, and every man and 
woman born in the United States, and every one immigrating 
into this country, before he or she is twenty-five years old, 
should be compelled to attend this school two years. Common 
laborer's wages should be paid to these pupils, and they should 
be deprived of every other means of support during this school 
attendance. The Government of this educational system should 
be strictly military, and the regulations rigidly carried out. 
Diplomas should be awarded its graduates, and honors given 
according to conduct. This would be a leveler indeed, but it 
would bring about more brotherly love than all the churches. 
It would introduce the poor and the rich to one another, and it 
would inspire confidence between capital and labor. It would 
enable the rich man to know how the poor man feels, and it 
would school the poor man in kindly feelings toward the rich. 
But enough — we must stick to the family, and its management. 

"Every family, like the Government, should have a head. 
This sometimes devolves upon the father, sometimes on the 
mother. Better on both, as two heads are better than one — 
especially in the family. But where one is incapable, the other 
should rule. Somebody's word should be law, and when spoken 
should be obeyed. Love, sitting at the feet of justice, is an 
ideal family picture. Little children have a high sense of jus- 
tice, and unless their minds become perverted through favor- 
itism, they willingly abide by her decisions. The sensible 
mother or father deals impartially with all. 

"After a while the little girl becomes a young lady, and this 
is the period in which the sensible mother has the greatest in- 
fluence for good. If too anxious for her daughter to have at- 
tention from young men, she may live to regret an unsuitable 
marriage, and, on the other hand, if she thinks no man is good 



Managing a Family. 255 

enough, for her girls, she may have a lot of old maids for her 
companions. A middle course is selected by the sensible mother, 
and if her girls be worthy, she will have no trouble in marry- 
ing them off to advantage. Worthy young men are ever on 
the outlook for suitable wives, and they generally have an in- 
stinctive preference for that which is meritorious. A desire 
to elevate one's family is a laudable ambition, but to marry out 
of one's class is a mistake. Caste exists all over the world — 
in one shape in India, and another in Europe and America. 
If I were a nigger, I would associate with niggers. I would 
never try to straighten my hair, nor to sit on the same seat 
with a white man. Natural barriers can never be wholly 
overcome, and the barriers of caste are more intractable than 
mountains and rivers." 

Mr. Eliot and his friend had walked a little further this 
morning than usual, and just as they were about to retrace 
their steps an old white-haired gentleman came along in his 
buggy on his way to his lodge meeting. This man was about 
the age of the schoolmaster and his particular friend, although 
in thought, feeling, and aspirations they differed as widely 
as the ISTorth from the South. One was a philosopher, the 
other a man of action; one a thinker, the other a doer; one 
lived in the abstract, the other in the concrete. For many 
years this old gentleman's mind had been imbued with the im- 
portance of three obligations, or, rather, a conscientious fealty 
to the performance of a trio of solemn duties. He was a 
strong Methodist, a bright Mason, and a true Patriot. He 
revered the Church, loved his lodge, and gloried in the Fourth 
of July. He never failed to celebrate the day of American 
independence, never missed a lodge meeting, and always went 
to church. He died promptly on t he fourth of July, after 
predicting his death three months in advance." 



♦This is ;i fact; and those who deny premonitions must account for it as best 
they may. The author of this hook knew the old man well. lie was about eighty 

of age when he died, and in April preceding his death he began to send word 

to his neighbors to come to see him, as he would die on the fourth of July. They 
Looked UPOD bis prediction a- one of the childish whims of old age, but as he oer- 
Edsted in Bending them word to come, merely to gratify him they all visited him 
before the fourth. lb- talked about his death on the day he loved, as if he knew 
it ami desired it. and when they tried to talk him out of it, he would Bay, 'Time 

will show.' On the fourth he ^ot up as usual, dressed, and ate his breakfast. Be 

told tho-e about him not to go away, as they would be needed before night. After 
dinner he went to bed and died without a groan. 



256 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

He drew rein as he neared the two men, and bade them a 
hearty good morning. The schoolmaster introduced his friend, 
and the old gentleman began, at once, to inquire about the 
rumored meeting that was soon to take place at the chapel. 
He was very anxious to know what denomination the stranger 
was attached to, and especially if he had any Methodist pro- 
clivities. His ideas all ran in the rut of denominational Chris- 
tianity, and it was but of little consequence to him whether a 
preacher was imbued with the spirit of Christ, so long as he fol- 
lowed the example of Wesley. He was as uncompromising in 
religion as he was in politics, and he would no more put his foot 
inside a Catholic church than he would seat himself at a faro- 
table, or vote the Republican ticket. He talked rapidly and al- 
most incoherently, for he had been infected with the prevailing 
excitement concerning the man who had been sent on a special 
mission to convert the schoolmaster. 

Knowing Mr. Eliot too well to ask him a direct question, he 
finally addressed the stranger, and asked him point-blank if 
he intended to preach at the chapel next Sunday. The traveler 
was taken rather aback at this sudden demand, for he, like his 
host, was a little shy of the critical and the curious; but his 
long experience had taught him that St. Paul tried to im- 
press the Corinthians with a secular, as well as a religious 
truth, when he said: 

"Though I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and 
have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cym- 
bal." 

He readily perceived the illiberal churchism of this old gen- 
tleman, but his kindly nature returned a soft, if not a satis- 
factory answer. 

"I would not have you ignorant, so, as much as in me is, I am 
ready to preach the gospel to you, for I am not ashamed of the 
gospel of Christ; for therein is the righteousness of God revealed 
from faith to faith : as it is written, 'The just shall live by faith.' 

Now, this old man had entirely too much faith. He be- 
lieved that the Methodist church was a direct inspiration of 
the Almighty; he believed the Masonic order to be a divine 



Managing a Family. 257 

institution, and lie believed the Fourth of July, as an ex- 
pression of American Independence, was appointed by God 
himself. 

As he looked at the stranger and considered his answer, a 
sort of awe crept through his mind, and without further dis- 
cussion, he bade them a kindly farewell and drove on to his 
lodge. 

The schoolmaster and his friend walked slowly back to the 
house, talking more on religious than secular matters. They 
discussed the neighborhood report, and decided that inasmuch 
as the whole community seemed to expect a sermon from the 
stranger, it would be as well for him to make a little talk, if the 
pastor of the church should invite him to the pulpit. 

On reaching the house, they found a messenger with a note. 
Here it is : 

My Dear Old Friend : — What with the exciting rumors abroad in 
this end of the circuit and the intense interest now manifested in 
your friend, whose acquaintance I am proud to acknowledge, I feel 
constrained to vary my rule by inviting him, through you, to be 
present and assist me at the next regular meeting at the chapel. 
I shall be more than glad to give him the entire hour if he will fill it. 
Hoping that he will accept and praying that the good Lord will bless 
us all. I am, fraternally and sincerely, 

Your friend, 0. F. D. 

Answer. 

Handing the note to his friend, the schoolmaster said: "The 
rumor has reached the parson, and here is an invitation for 
you." 

A faint imitation of a smile passed over the stranger's coun- 
tenance as he read the note, and handing it back to the teacher, 
he said : " 'I am ready at all times to give an answer to every 
man that asketh me a reason for the faith that is in me'"; 
then, moving to his desk, the schoolmaster wrote this brief 
note to the minister: 

.My Dear Doctor: — Note received and onr friend feels the compli- 
ment. He desires me to say he will aid you in any way he can with 

tlM ' B^rvteea Vi)UI . rvU . U(l Ghost Eh ror. 



17 



258 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEK XXX. 

OLD AGE. 

After dismissing the messenger, Mr. Eliot turned to his 
guest, and said: "The last subject for discussion in the life 
of a human being is the subject of old age, and where I fail 
to realize the full significance of that period I shall look to you 
for help, as to one whose experience is more valuable than all 
the theories of the greatest philosophers." 

There was as much flattery and as much deception in this 
observation as the old teacher ever was guilty of, for while he 
found much to puzzle him in the character of his guest, he 
could not get the consent of his mind that there was not still 
a crotchet hanging like a veil over the mind of his friend, when- 
ever he spoke of his age and his experience. However, he could 
make but. little mistake in such a compliment, paid to a man 
of so much learning and varied accomplishments as he had 
found in the mysterious stranger. 

"Your age and your experience," he continued, "must have 
given you an insight into the nature of man denied to the aver- 
age octogenarian." 

"As to that," replied the traveler, "I have little advantage 
over you, for whenever I reach the age of one hundred, I am 
always turned back and again become a man in his prime. 
Even as a centenarian, I would know less of old age than the 
average man of seventy, for my faculties never deteriorate, and 
my capacity for suffering is never blunted. I only get a little 
stiff in the legs, and the pains of senility acquire a little sharper 
twinge. As to the mental state of an old man, I know nothing 
of it. Swift endeavored to portray the miseries of immortality 
in his description of the struldbrugs of Luggnagg : and, perhaps, 
his imagination wove a true picture of the wretchedness of a 
never-ending life. Even with my faculties unimpaired, the 
greatest desire of my life is death, and I shall hail with joy the 
second coming of Christ. 

"The man who craves immortality here, must have a poor 
conception of the eternal life hereafter. Though my case be 
different from that of others, I can't understand why any man 



Old Age. 259 

should desire a prolongation of his earthly existence after age 
has enfeebled his body and benumbed his mind. At best, after 
the novelty of youth has passed, and the trials of manhood 
have been experienced, we can only look to the present for 
the consolations of the passing hour. Looking back, we behold 
mistakes and regrets ; looking forward, we see the hideous 
shapes of decay — the blurred images of driveling imbecility. 
Xothing this side the grave is of much importance to the aged 
man. Into the beyond we must look and be consoled by the 
promise : 

" -Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit 
shall return unto God who gave it.' 

"Oh! for the privilege of being with God — to be heirs and 
joint heirs with the Son of man ! There, unburdened with 
the vanities of the flesh, rid of the passions which beset men in 
this life, purified and exalted above the temptations of earth, 
with our minds serene and calm, growing in knowledge and ex- 
panding in love, we shall view this earthly shell as the butter- 
fly views the moth. With what serenity we shall look down 
upon earth, knowing that a few fleeting years will deliver 
our friends from that chrysalis state in which the germ of a 
higher life is waxing into the perfect man ! 

"We pity ourselves and our fellows here, because of our im- 
perfections, our ignorance, and our proneness to error and to 
pain. There, we look upon this life as a probationary state 
fitting us for the higher life, eternal with the Author of our 
being. This is our hope, based upon the promise of Him 
who came to redeem us. Your material philosophy dare> not to 

contradicl the promise, bul rather abets it; for. if the civic 
Ego he an emanation from God, as your theory of the functional 
activity of brain-substance would teach, it must go buck to God 
when released from its earthly honds, or else wander forever 
in limitle<> Bpace — ;i BUppositioD at variance with the teachings 
of Bcience. Without this bope old age won]. I, indeed, be a mon- 
strous travesty upon our earthly existence. 

"The civic Kgo heing an uncompounded essence, it is neither 
subject to disintegration nor change, therefore it must continue 
to exist ;i- a personality for all time. The aged man. satisfied 



260 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

with the sensual pleasures of earth, must turn either to this 
hope or gaze with sightless eyeballs into a blank and starless 
future. The hope, even if a delusion, must be worth its nur- 
ture. But the hope is based upon reason as well as the promise, 
for science will not admit of destruction, and as change can 
take place only with material combinations, the true personal- 
ity of man is one and the same after leaving the flesh." 

"I understand fully," replied the teacher, "the significance 
of the Christian's idea of a future state, but that being purely a 
theoretical conception, and out of the pale of earthly existence, 
I would confine our inquiry to the state of man prior to the 
shuffling off of this mortal coil, and when he has arrived at 
that stage of existence where the bodily organs begin to show 
signs of deterioration, and the mental powers lapse from 
strength and activity to a state of apathy and indifference. 
Deprived of the stimulus of passion, uninfluenced by the hope 
of accomplishing some end, debarred from the activities of life 
by increasing bodily infirmities, the old man's ideas run in a 
groove ill-suited to the sphere of action by which he is sur- 
rounded, and more often he becomes morose, ill-tempered, and 
pessimistic. To guard against such a state when the pleasura- 
ble resources of life are diminishing one by one, the habit of 
philosophical thought should be cultivated in the prime of life, 
and the doctrine of inexorable necessity accepted as the logical 
outcome of that law of cause and effect which alone exists with- 
out exception. 

"To contemplate the spirit of the restless old man who is dis- 
satisfied with his past life, who is without resources for the 
present, and who has no hope for the future, is one of the sad- 
dest of the dark pictures of human life. Darker still is the pic- 
ture of the wretch who, through improvidence, has brought 
himself to dependence upon others for the necessities of life. 
He is at war with the world and he attributes his own unhappy 
lot to the dereliction of others. Nothing suits him and he has 
the same feeling for friend and foe. Like the old lion who has 
lost his teeth and worn his claws, he lies in the sunshine of 
others and snarls and snaps at every passer-by. 

"It is pleasant to turn from this picture of a misspent life to 
the happy old grandfather surrounded by a lot of prattling 



Old Age. 261 

tots, ever ready to tell them a story or have them search his 
pockets for nuts and sweets. The resources of the aged man 
are limited to his mental heritage and to the manner in which 
he has cultivated his talent. If allowed to go to waste, the bet- 
ter part of his earthly career is clouded with vexations to him- 
self and discomfort to his friends. Here, more than elsewhere, 
may he seen the utility and beauty of mental culture. Proper 
direction of thought by the study of science and literature, by 
reflecting on the wisdom of the sages who have preceded us, by 
looking into the causes which govern the phenomena of exist- 
ence, and by yielding equo animo to the inevitable, sets the aged 
man upon a pedestal unattainable by those whose only object in 
life has been the gratification of the flesh. Education pays its 
handsomest dividends in the decline of life, and nothing is more 
beautiful to behold than the waning years of the aged man or 
woman, with a well-stored mind, whose eyesight, hearing, and 
mental faculties remain after the purely animal functions have 
ceased to call forth effort necessary to the fulfillment of the 
activities of manhood and womanhood. 

"Sitting in the corner, with her pipe, her book, and her knit- 
ting, I recall the picture of an ancient lady — a mass of wrin- 
kles — almost a skeleton, but whose vegetative functions still 
kept the spark of life aglow; happy in the satisfaction of a 
well-spent life, able to entertain a king or a beggar, a child or 
a philosopher, her daily routine was from her book to her pipe, 
from her pipe to her knitting and from all three to the enter- 
tainment of friends. This good old grandmother was loved by 
all, and when she came to die the spark went out as quietly as 
the flicker of a bumed-up torch. For such a death there can 
be no regrets; for such a life the world is made better." 

"The picture you draw," replied the traveler, "of a well-spent 
life is ideal in its simplicity and the beauty of its earthly sur- 
roundings; bul the hand of the master is Lacking -the one color 
essential to it- perfection is not there. Life, immortal life, pic- 
tured on the brow, and shining with the effulgence of a glorious 
aureole of light, completes the portrait, and we have a master- 
piece by the Author of our being. A belief in the risen Christ, 
faith in immortality, and submission to the will of God adds a 
crown of glory to a well-spent life unattainable througl tntal 



262 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

culture. Without this faith the poetry of age is lost in the 
Stygian pool of oblivion, and the hard prose of active life be- 
comes a blotted page of emptiness. 

"The wrinkled grandmother, patiently waiting her summons, 
with this crown in sight, is an invited guest to her home in 
heaven. The Father will hold out his hand and beckon her up 
the golden stairs, and the Son will give her a seat amongst the 
blessed. This state is the crowning glory of a well-spent life, 
and instead of regrets, the hosts of heaven will rejoice, and the 
denizens of earth should have no cause for grief. Let us learn 
to indulge this hope and strive for the immortal crown." 

It was now midday and Saturday. The conversation had 
gone on to a degree when some other diversion became desirable. 
Dinner was -announced, and after the meal both the school- 
master and his friend selected a book and soon became absorbed 
in the thoughts of those who had lived before them. Curious 
as it may seem, the stranger took from the shelf Voltaire's 
Philosophical Dictionary, and the schoolmaster picked up the 
Bible. For a couple of hours they both read and thought. 
Tears might have been seen in the eyes of the traveler as he 
read the great detractor's pathetic account of the barbarous 
treatment inflicted upon the innocent man whose tragic death 
made such a terrible impression on his mind so many years 
ago. The schoolmaster, instead of criticising the book he was 
reading, selected those passages which appeal most strongly to 
the better nature of man, and which, in a spirit of reverence, 
the humble may always see is an inspiration beyond the power 
of mere intellectuality. His mind began to turn from the cold 
critique of reason to the warmer glow of passion. Love, joy, 
forgiveness, charity, thrilled him as the dry details of logic 
never had. He began to realize that there was something more 
in man than mere thought. Feelings, which he had all his 
life endeavored to subdue, loomed up and cried out against the 
tyranny of rationality. He asked himself, "If God is without 
passions, where did man get his?" The inconsistency of scrip- 
ture was to him a stumbling-block, as it had been to the Greek 
foolishness. The character of Jesus Christ as portrayed in the 
gospels was intensely human. Did he inherit his human na- 
ture from Mary and his other nature from God ? Was it possi- 



Old Age. 263 

ble that the line of demarcation could be so sharply defined? or, 
was the whole case an exception to the law of heredity? If 
the entire story of Jesus was a legend, how came we by such 
a character? By what hocus-pocus of logic or imagination 
could such a life have been invented? That he had all the 
attributes of humanity the narrative fully demonstrates. Was 
he God also ? Thousands of good people believed it ; the incom- 
prehensible stranger at his side knew it. 

He laid down the book, and turning to his guest, he said: 
"I am almost persuaded to be a Christian." The stranger then 
repeated Paul's answer to Agrippa, and they took their even- 
ing's walk. 

Strolling down toward the "chapel," they saw a throng busily 
engaged in placing seats in the church-yard — planks laid on 
logs of wood, and boxes and benches taken from wagons and 
arranged under the shade of the trees. In the open spaces they 
were erecting bowers of evergreens, and in one corner of the 
yard they were raising a platform for the preacher. The 
weather being hot and the meeting-house small, it was decided 
that an outdoor sermon would be better suited to the crowd 
expected on the morrow. 

Xot wishing to interrupt the work nor to be criticised by idle 
curiosity, they turned into a bypath and missed the church. 

"You see what they are expecting," remarked the teacher, as 
they continued their walk. 

"I fear they will meet with disappointment," replied the 
stranger, "if they expect anything great, but, God willing, I 
hope to instruct them for their good, and show them the neces- 
sity of learning the way of salvation." 

Both moil walked on in silence— the traveler studying out a 
plan by which to reach this multitude, and the schoolmaster 

racking his brain over the problem of the Triune Godhead. At 
length the walk was ended, the bouse had hcen reached, and they 
both felt tired. After a desultory conversation of little impor- 
tance, they retired, each man thinking of what the morrow 
mighl bring. 



264 The Lantern of Diogenes. 



CHAPTEE XXXI. 

SUNDAY MORNING. 

"Early to bed' and early to rise/' a part of Poor Kichard's 
proverb, if applicable to these men at all, certainly did not in- 
clude that fragment which applies to wealth. As to health, 
if we may trace or ascribe cause, there may be some connection, 
and possibly the mental vigor so manifest in these two was, 
more or less, the effect of a continuous viewing of the rising sun. 
At any rate, they were early risers, and on this particular 
morning the glorious luminary beamed upon them as he came 
above the horizon, and they seemed to feel the touch of God's 
finger as the life-giving ray dispelled the gloom and darkness 
of night. It was a glorious morn, and a light wind stirred 
and dissipated the excessive heat. Much Avas to be gained 
by an early walk, so they wended their way to the "chapel." 
Here the preparation was complete for a large company. The 
outdoor pulpit had been decorated with ferns and evergreen 
vines — the Virginia creeper and the honeysuckle, the holly and 
the Southern pine formed a pleasing contrast as they were 
twined and arranged by the deft fingers of the artist; for the 
women had been there the evening before, and a mixture of 
pride and religion had been at work to produce a pleasing effect. 

The little chapel was situated on the edge of the woods, and 
the sun had not yet penetrated the dense foliage of the trees, 
while the schoolmaster and his friend roamed about the church- 
yard, amongst the arbors and settles arranged for the comfort 
of the audience. Approaching the pulpit-side, a shadowy form 
emerged from the bower and flitted away into the semigloom 
of the forest. 

"There !" exclaimed the traveler, "there goes the spirit of 
peace. It has been here to bless the day and the hour; I have 
seen it before and its presence augurs well for the day." 

This outburst of superstitious reverence — the first evidence 
the schoolmaster had of his guest's hyper-orthodoxy — brought 
to mind the beautiful lines : 

"For well I ween, 
Never before in the bowers of light 
Had the form of an earthly fay been seen." 



Sunday Morning. 265 

But the old gentleman was not in an argumentative mood. 
He was willing for his guest to enjoy the delusion of sense, if 
such it was, and after resting a moment, they quietly walked 
back to the house. 

About 11 o'clock it could be seen from the house that the 
congregation was collecting. From miles and miles around the 
people came. Never had such a commotion been caused in a 
rural community over a Sunday church-going. Old and young, 
white and colored, simple and wise — all made direct for the 
church on this midsummer day. Many went through curiosity, 
and others simply because they had nothing else to do ; but 
the great majority went because they were anxious to hear the 
stranger preach and see the schoolmaster converted. Mr. Eliot 
being the only infidel in this community of Christians, every 
eye was turned upon him and every thought directed toward 
his future state. His uprightness, his charity, his doing good 
for evil, his love for his fellowman, had nothing to do with 
the estimation in which he was held. He was regarded as 
the incubus which weighed most heavily on the spiritual re- 
sources of the community. Thieves, liars, drunkards, and mur- 
derers flourished apace, but their acts were not remembered 
when a man who questioned Holy Writ came alongside. He 
dared to ask the preacher for rational explanations, while tin 1 
others accepted all that was said, and repented a I every revival. 
They would be saved while he would be lost. Hell was to be 
avoided, not by avoiding wickedness here, but by faith and 
repentance. The preacher had told them so, and they believed 
the preacher. The bigger the scoundrel the more certain he 
was of heaven, provided he repented. The worst liar who over 
lived now had the keys. Only one decent man had ever gotten 
there, and he was sent up in a whirlwind surrounded by a 
chariot of fire. D;ivi<l, the man after God's own heart, bad 

ted another man's wife, and Moses, who was buried by 
God himself, had killed a man in his v.. nth. They remembered 
these things, bul they forgot that the wise man said: 

M Fear God and keep ins commandments: t*<>r tins is the whole 
duly of man." 



266 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"And, 

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, 
To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
himself unspotted from the world." 

The preacher drove up about the time Mr. Eliot and his 
friend reached the grounds. Every eye was upon the three. 
After the salutations and hearty expressions of pleasure at the 
opportunity of the day, the meeting and introduction of friends 
and acquaintances, the preacher and the stranger walked over 
to the bower and seated themselves in the outdoor pulpit. The 
congregation was asked to sing while the two men held a pri- 
vate conversation. A brother raised the tune and the whole 
company joined in the hymn, which begins : 

"Teach me, my God and King, 
In all things thee to see." 

Enthusiasm was manifest from the beginning, and the forest 
echoed the harmony of the soulful tune. The music ceased and 
the preacher stood up before the audience. 

"Brethren and friends," he said, "this is a glorious day, and 
the occasion is a glorious occasion. There are times when it 
seems that the appetites of men pall at the mention of bread, 
when meats cloy and drinks become abhorrent. When the soul 
is hungry the body refuses nourishment. There are times when 
it seems that the Spirit of God is more active, when the hover- 
ing of angels is more manifest in the aifairs of men, when all 
things give way to the longing for food sent from heaven. 

"That time, it seems to me, is here now — this day and this 
very hour. Strange, unaccountable things have occurred in all 
the back history of this world, and for many weeks we have had 
in our midst an unsolved riddle — a man whose history, as it 
has leaked out little by little in this community, has made an 
impression unaccountable in the natural sequence of events. 
If we are laboring under a delusion, we are none the worse off, 
for his conduct has been that of a gentleman, his conversation 
has proved him to be a scholar, and his walk that of a Chris- 
tian. He is endorsed by the best informed man in this or any 
other community, and as the impression has gone forth that he 
is to assist in conducting the services here to-day, I have chosen 



Sunday Morning. 267 

rather to give him the entire hour, for his experience, as I un- 
derstand it, will be an enlightenment to us all. 

"I give way with pleasure to the instruction of our friend 
and brother." 

The preacher sat down, and the stranger rose up and faced 
the audience. He looked over the whole congregation several 
times, as if he was measuring the distance to the remotest seat 
in the church-yard. The silence was profound, and when he 
spoke, his voice, though modulated to an easy tone, was heard 
by the remotest listener. He did not touch the Bible; he gave 
out no hymn; he uttered no prayer. 

He spoke, and said : "Friends, if I were to say I am embar- 
rassed I should not speak truth, for I am past embarrassment ; 
if elated, I should be vain, but I have parted company with 
vanity; if delighted, I should be proud, and I am not proud; 
but when I tell you I feel complimented I am justified, for I 
am not aware of deserving this honor. The friend at whose 
house I have been entertained for the past few weeks has been 
kind enough to speak well of me, and while he and I differ as 
widely as midnight differs from noon on the most vital of all 
subjects — on the subject in which we all should be most inter- 
ested, that of our immortal destiny — there is no reason why we 
should differ as to the brotherhood of man. He is actuated by 
the purest motives, and if his error is the result of ignorance 
it behooves us to teach and not to condemn, for the Savior 
said: 

•• 'Judge not, lest ye be judged by the same judgment.' 

"And, speaking a little wrathfully to the self-satisfied, he said: 

" 'Thou hypocrite! Cast out first the beam out of thine own eye. 
and then Shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy 
brother's eye.' 

"So, it' any of you think your chance of heaven is better than 

his, it will become yon to cultivate the Christian graces, and 
remember that the greatest of these is charity. 

"I am not here to-day to flatter, but to speak the truth; I 
am not here to make a good impression, bul i<> bear the cross of 
Christ. There was a time when I spurned that burden, bul 



268 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

now I rejoice in the privilege of carrying it. Nineteen hun- 
dred years ago I drove from my door the Holy One of Israel — 
the victim of fanaticism and hate, refusing him a paltry re- 
quest — that of resting a moment that he might gain strength 
to carry out his design of saving a sinful world. Since then I 
have fought the good fight, and with God's help I purpose to 
remain a valiant soldier of the Cross. I shall tell you what I 
have seen before I conclude, and while it may be incredible to 
your minds, it is as true as that Christ was born of a virgin, 
or that he fed five thousand with two little fishes and five 
loaves of bread. 

"In the Christian ministry it is customary for the preacher 
to select a text from the Bible, and endeavor to explain the 
thought and meaning of the inspired writer; but to-day we 
will speak in a plain, matter-of-fact way on the subject of igno- 
rance and its consequences. The Scriptures very clearly teach 
that ignorance is the cause of sin, and I shall endeavor to show 
that cause and effect here are one and the same thing — that 
ignorance itself is sin, and that sin and doubt in a moral sense 
are synonymous terms. 

"When God made man he made him upright and in his own 
image, with knowledge amply sufficient for his needs and happi- 
ness; but with the fall came a consciousness of doubt, sin, and 
ignorance — interchangeable terms for the inheritance bestowed 
upon all through the disobedience of one. The knowledge of 
good and evil, gained by eating the forbidden fruit, threw man 
on his own resources, and since that day he has been in a 
quandary as to what is right and what is wrong. Like much 
of the knowledge gained in these days, instead of adding to 
our happiness, it adds to our grief, and unless we could know 
more it would be better for us not to know so much. We recog- 
nize the principles right and wrong, good and evil, as potential 
activities, yet it would be better for us to lack this cognizance, 
so long as we are unable to distinguish the one from the other. 
This partial knowledge fell upon the human race as a conse- 
quence of Adam's sin, and now it becomes us to get more or to 
sink in the quicksands of infidelity. The line of demarcation 
is not very clear in many instances, but every phenomenon of 



Sunday Morning. 269 

existence is either in one scale or the other. It is impossible 
that anything can be right and wrong at the same time and 
under the same circumstances. 

"If it is right to be ignorant, then the pursuit of knowledge 
is wrong, and all schooling, all preaching, all reading, and all 
writing should be abandoned ; sending the gospel to the heathen 
should be prohibited and all literature destroyed. If ignorance 
be not sin, all missionary work should cease, and the command, 
'Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture/ should be countermanded, and the Christian faith allowed 
to perish. 

"If the heathen be not already damned through ignorance, 
then the Scripture falsifies its own statement, and the name of 
Jesus Christ becomes of no effect, for the declaration is plain 
and emphatic that : 

" 'There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby 
we must be saved ; neither is there salvation in any other.' 

"Ponder it, think over it, my friends ! Thousands and tens 
of thousands of our fellow-creatures going down into the eter- 
nal abyss every day, there to weep and wail in everlasting agony 
without hope — with no possibility of redemption — and all for 
the lack of a knowledge of Him who was sent as a propitiation 
for our sins. If the case of the heathen is pitiable from a 
human standpoint, what of ours, where a double guilt is fast- 
ened upon us — that of ignorance and willful rejection of the 
message ? 

"That every human being comes into this world without any 
knowledge whatever is a self-evident truth, and that he is con- 
ceived in sin and shapen in iniquity is an assertion of Scrip- 
ture. Absolutely ignorant, totally unprepared for any kind of 
life except a purely vegetative existence, the human infant i< 
confronted at once with good and evil, right and wrong— the 
very things which man in his maturity has never vet been able 
to reconcile. In the child-life of human beings parents stand 

ill the same relation to them that God stood to our firsl parents 
before the transgression. Hut man horn of woman is more 
pitiable and has less of an opportunity than the full-grew n. 



270 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

intelligent being issuing forth from the hands of his Maker. 
If the one, with all the knowledge necessary to his happiness, 
failed, how is it possible for the other, absolutely without 
knowledge, to succeed? 

"If a blind man were to set out on a journey, with innumera- 
ble roads crooked and forked, some of which led to his journey's 
end, others away from it, with thousands of bypaths reaching 
into desert places, even with an occasional sentinel along the 
route to direct him, there are a thousand chances to one that 
he would get lost and fall by the wayside. Theseus, in the 
Cretan labyrinth without the guiding thread of his lady-love, 
would have been no more hopelessly in the dark than the hu- 
man infant confronted with good and evil. Let us imagine a 
debtor and a creditor page in the ledger of human accounts, 
with every error recorded on the debtor side, and every right 
action written on the credit side — this account to be kept from 
the moment of birth till the close of a long life. Let these 
debits and credits be represented by unit values or numerical 
measures, ranging from one to one hundred, according to the 
degree of good or evil, right or wrong in the actions. Would 
it be possible for the accounts to balance? Will the 'book of 
life/ recorded in the Apocalypse by St. John the Divine, bal- 
ance when the great day of reckoning comes? 

" 'And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God ; and 
the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is 
the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which 
were written in the books, according to their works.' 

"Kevelation and common sense oftentimes effect At-one-ment 
in which the sacred writer strikes the chord of human con- 
sciousness in a key which produces harmony instead of discord ; 
and the note of true science will always vibrate in unison with 
the revealed word rightly interpreted. The 'book of life,' 
opened in the presence of St. John, represents the ledger ac- 
count of human thought and action indelibly stamped on the 
psychic record of each and every individual. The conflict be- 
tween science and religion is nothing more than a misfit inter- 
pretation of the natural laws of the Universe and the revealed 



Sunday Morning. 271 

word of God. Science falsely so-called is the abattoir of faith, 
and reason misapplied is the fungoid excrescence of criminal 
ignorance. 

"Let any man take his own experience and ask himself: 
Have I done as many right things as wrong things I have I 
committed as many good deeds as evil deeds? Have I had as 
many good thoughts as evil thoughts? Would he not exclaim 
in the language of Paul? 

H 'I know That there chvelleth not in me that which is good, for 
the good which I will. I do not ; but the evil which I will not. that 
I do.' 

"Is it in the range of probability that the blind man should 
go straight to his journey's end with so many forks and crooks 
in the road he is traveling? Would it be possible to get out of 
the labyrinth without the thread for a guide ? jSTow, is it possi- 
ble for the human being to reach his coveted goal without help ? 

"That help is offered you in the atonement of Jesus Christ ; 
and this brings us to the second and most important part of the 
discourse. 

"For the benefit of those who reject the supernatural and 
who regard natural law as the only revelation of God, I desire 
to call your attention to some facts which every man's expe- 
rience will teach him are realities, and in many instances most 
calamitous realities. From the terrible cataclysmic disasters, 
such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storms and floods which 
overwhelm men, causing havoc and death, down to the i 
insignificant individual annoyances, we have in this train effects 
inimical to human happiness and prosperity which men have 
never yet been able to circumvent nor to anticipate. Notwith- 
standing every effort made by the deepest insight, ami the 
knowledge gained by past experience, to mitigate and prevent 
these unpleasant and unprofitable occurrences, the world is full 
of accidents, full of pain, full of disease and death. Whether 
s man lose his life by accident, by disease, or by violence, the 
fact to him is the Bame- he is dead. Material philosophers 

who reject the doctrine of rewards and punishments are wont 
to call these Consequences J they deny any connection, kin-hip, 

or jointure whatever with -in deny punishment and attribute 

nil to inexorable law. 






272 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

"In the name of all that is reasonable, what difference can it 
be to the sufferer whether it be called by one name or another — 
whether it be punishment inflicted or whether it be consequence, 
either of violated law, of accident, or of sin? The suffering 
in either case may be the same, but for the violated law there is 
no forgiveness; the consequence must be endured. Nature has 
no mercy, and she afflicts the innocent the same as the guilty. 

"The material philosophy teaches that for violated law there 
can be no modification of the consequence, let the suffering be 
never so great. It makes no difference between accident and 
willful crime. Intention is placed in the same category with 
casualty. It has no moral cede, and it ignores sin. It is inhu- 
man, soulless, lifeless — dead. It belongs to the inanimate 
world, and, constituted as men are, it becomes an ignis fatuus, 
leading on to destruction. To be a materialist, man must divest 
himself of passion, deny final cause, and become a mass of rea- 
soning matter. It is impossible : and the man who fools him- 
self with this pseudo-philosophy is criminally ignorant and 
ignorantly sinful. 

"The hell he has constructed for our future abode is more 
horrible in its structure and more devilish in its furnishings 
than any conception of the Christian. Admitting the impossi- 
bility of making the account balance, he consigns all, without 
exception and without remedy, to this endless horror. An 
exposition of the fiendishness of this Godless philosophy is 
nowhere more forcibly expressed than in the writings of one of 
its modem advocates : 

" 'In Scripture we meet with several doctrines which may be con- 
sidered as the approximate formula, the imperfect, partial, and in- 
accurate expression of certain mighty and eternal verities. Thus 
the spirituality of Christ's character and the superhmnan excellence 
of his life lie at the bottom of the Incarnation ; which was simply 
a mistake of the morally for the physically divine, an idea carnal- 
ized into a fact. In the same manner, the doctrine of the eternity 
of future punishments, false as it must be in its ordinary significa- 
tion, contains a glimpse of one of the most awful and indisputable 
truths ever presented to the human understanding, viz., the eternal 
and ineffaceable consequences of our every action, the fact that 
every word and every deed produces effects which must, by the 



Sunday Morning. 273 

very nature of things, reverberate through all time, so that the whole 
of futurity would be different had that word never been spoken or 
that deed enacted. 

M 'There is a sense, therefore, in which the eternity of future pun- 
ishment may be irrefragably and terribly true — if that very en- 
hancement of our faculties in a future life which enables us to per- 
ceive and trace the ineffaceable consequences of our idle words and 
our evil deeds should render our remorse and grief as eternal as those 
consequences themselves. Xo more fearful punishment to a superior 
Intelligence can be conceived than to see still in action — with the 
consciousness that it must continue in action forever — a cause of 
wrong put in motion by itself ages before. 

" 'The pulsations of the air, once set in motion by the human 
voice, cease not to exist with the sounds to which they gave rise. 
Strong and audible as they may be in the immediate neighborhood 
of the speaker, and at the immediate moment of utterance, their 
quickly-attenuated force soon becomes inaudible to human ears. But 
the waves of air thus raised perambulate the earth's and ocean's sur- 
face, and in less than twenty hours every atom of its atmosphere 
takes up the altered movement due to that infinitesimal portion of 
primitive motion which has been conveyed to it through countless 
channels, and which must continue to influence its path throughout 
its future existence. 

'• 'But these aerial pulses, unseen by the keenest eye, unheard by 
the acutest car. unperceived by human senses, are yet demonstrated 
to exist by human reason; and in some few and limited instances, 
by calling to our aid the most refined and comprehensive instrument 
of human thought (mathematical analysis), their courses are traced 
and their intensities measured. Thus considered, what a strange 
chaos is this wide atmosphere we breathe: Every atom Impressed 
with good and with ill retains at once the motions which philoso- 
phers and sages have imparted to it. mixed and combined In ten 
thousand waves with all that is worthless and base. The air is one 
va<t library, Oil whose pages is forever written all that man lias 
ever said or even whispered. There, in their mutable but Uner- 
ring Characters, mixed With the earliest as well as the latest Sighs 

of mortality, stand forever recorded vows unredeemed, promises un- 
fulfilled, perpetuating, in the united movements of each particle, 
the testimony of man's changeful will. 

•••inn if th<- air we breathe is the aever-failing historian of the 
sentiments we have ottered, earth, air, and ocean are in like manner 
the eternal witnesses of the acts we have done. No motion Impressed 
by natural causes or by human agency is ever obliterated. The 
track of every canoe which has yel disturbed the surface of the 
ocean remains forever registered in the future movements of all 
succeeding particles which may occupy its place. 

■••While the atmosphere we breathe is the ever-living witness 

18 






274 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

of the sentiments we have uttered, the waters and the more solid 
materials of the globe bear equally enduring testimony of the acts 
we have committed. If the Almighty stamped on the brow of the 
earliest murderer the visible and indelible mark of his guilt, he 
has also established laws by which every succeeding criminal is not 
less irrevocably chained to the testimony of his crime; for every 
atom of his mortal frame, through whatever changes its several 
particles may migrate, will still retain, adhering to it through every 
combination, some movement derived from that very muscular effort 
by which the crime itself was perpetrated. 

" 'If we imagine the soul in an after stage of existence, connected 
with an organ of hearing so sensitive as to vibrate with motions 
of the air, even of infinitesimal force, and if it be still within the 
precincts of its ancient abode, all the accumulated words pronounced 
from the creation of mankind will fall at once on that ear ; and the 
punished offender may hear still vibrating on his ear the very words 
uttered perhaps thousands of centuries before, which at once caused 
and registered his own condemnation.' 

"Is there anything in Dante or Milton more horrible in its 
conception of future torment? Concede the revealed hell of 
the Christian and the reasoned-out hell of the philosopher to 
be of equal capacity for the torture of lost souls, and then com- 
pare the utter hopelessness of escape from the philosophic hell, 
with the possibility — yea, certainty, on one condition, of avoid- 
ing the Christian's hell, and ask yourself, Which ? Choose ! 
for it is with you. God himself cannot save you without your 
consent, for God cannot tell a lie ; and he has said : 

" 'By grace are ye saved through faith' ; and, 'He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be 
damned.' 

"A summing up of the proposition brings it to this : Nature 
demanding compensations in all its minutest details, philoso- 
phy and reason can only balance that book of life — the human 
account — by adding to the creditor page an endless place of 
torment for every soul that hasexisted on this earth. This is 
the fiat justitia, ruat caelum, or the proffer of materialism. The 
proposition of Christ is a promise : 

" 'Accept me, and I will not only balance your account, but I will 
blot it out, and though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow; though they be red like crimsou, they shall be as 
wool ; for I will forgive your iniquity, and I will remember your 
sins no more. Thus saith the Lord. Ameu.' 



Sunday Morning. 275 

"The argument is closed — we rest here. The logic of it to 
my mind is conclusive. Materialism offers nothing; Chris- 
tianity offers a promise, and gives you a hope. You say : Sup- 
pose the promise is false ! Suppose it is ! you are only where 
the materialist is, no better — no worse off. But, friends, there 
is something more in human life than facts and reason — there 
is experience; and from this the categories of thought get all 
their meaning, which is the only proof of their possibility. 

"But the experience of all men is not the same — hence the 
diversity of thought in the every-day business of life. This 
applies equally to our thought of our relation to God, and if 
we find we cannot interpret our life without rooting it in the 
divine, we are perfectly free to do so, so far as speculation 
goes. But speculation does not always reach the root — the bot- 
tom of things. In the concrete region the only test of possi- 
bility apart from the purely negative and formal one of non- 
contradiction is experience. 

"We view the Sphinx, the Pyramids of the Mle valley, and 
the enormous columns of the ruined city of Karnak; and we 
speculate on the mechanical means by which they were placed 
in position, but the experience of all that host of architects and 
laborers is lost, and imagination only can fill the void in our 
knowledge. 

"We have a meager account of the trial, crucifixion, and 
resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, all of which 
is true, but the half has never been told ; and the things which 
Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I sup- 
pose that oven the world itself could not contain the books that 
should be written. xVnd yet the experience of one who saw 
these things is here before you to-day; for unrecognized as 
prophecy often is, and obscure as the language in which ii is 
written may seem, the eternal verities are never shaken -'even 
the mystery which hath been hid from ages, and from genera- 
tions, l)in LS now made manifest I" hi- saints.' 

-ir I will that be tarry till i <-<>in<>. whal is thai to thee?' 

"This rebuke to Peter's Lnquisitiveness is applicable to all 
succeeding inquirers into the mystery of godliness; and il I 



276 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

proclaim the truth, of this obscure hint as one of the most stu- 
pendous miracles connected with the ministry of Christ, I only 
act as interpreter of his word. 

" 'The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but 
the son of man hath not where to lay his head.' 

"This has a deeper meaning than the poverty of Him who 
preached against riches, for it includes the wanderings of lost 
souls, emphasized by the endless pererration of the man whose 
lot it is to go on till His return. 

"On that awful day, full nineteen hundred years ago, when 
the most appalling scene ever enacted amongst men was car- 
ried into effect — when, through ignorance, fanaticism, and 
hate, the most cruel, unjustifiable, and cold-blooded murder ever 
committed on this earth was perpetrated, and that, too, under 
the sanction of law : suddenly, about the sixth hour, to the west- 
ward, there arose a vast, cloudy vapor, which by degrees ex- 
panded, mounted, and seemed to be slowly diffusing itself over 
the whole face of the heavens. By and by this vast sheet of 
mist began to thicken toward the horizon, and to roll forward 
in billowy volumes. The spectators to this scene, among whom 
I, myself, unwittingly became an eye-witness, put conjecture 
on the stretch to divine the cause of this phenomenon; and the 
interest continually increased in proportion as simple curiosity 
gradually deepened into the anxiety of uncertain danger. At 
first it had been imagined that a paludal vapor had risen from 
the miasmatic bogs of the lowlands, and that the sun's rays 
would soon dissipate the mist and restore the sky to its azure 
tint. But this conjecture was dissipated by the slow increase 
of the cloud and the steadiness of its motion. In the course of 
an hour the vast phenomenon had advanced to a point which 
was judged to be within a mile of the spectators; though all 
calculation of distance were difficult, and often fallacious, when 
applied to the rocky undulations of the Judean hills. Through 
the next hour, during which the gentle morning breeze had a 
little freshened, the murky vapor had developed itself far and 
wide into the appearance of huge aerial draperies, hanging in 
mighty volumes from the sky to the earth; and at particular 



Sunday Morning. 211 

points, where the eddies of the breeze acted upon the pendulous 
skirts of these aerial curtains, rents were perceived, sometimes 
taking the form of regular arches, portals, and windows through 
which began dimly to gleam the forms of winged angels 'in- 
dorsed' with ministering spirits, and at intervals the moving of 
evil genii and demons in tumultuous array, and then through 
other openings or vistas, at far distant points, the flashing of 
fiery darts and vivid streaks of light. There was no noise; 
else it might have been considered an electric rain-cloud of 
unusual appearance. After a while the wind slackened and 
finally died away, when all those openings of whatever form in 
the cloudy pall slowly closed and the whole pageant was shut 
up from view. Until the ninth hour this dark mantle hung over 
the earth like an inverted bowl, through which the sun could 
only be seen as a faintly luminous spot ; but notwithstanding 
the murkiness of the cloud, and the intense gloominess of its 
shadow, a faint light of day could be perceived in the diapha- 
nous sky above ; and as through a glass darkly could be seen the 
outlines of shadowy forms contending in battle array. 

"It was, in fact, the host of heaven in conflict with the 
powers of darkness; good striving with evil; brotherly love 
warring with the evil passions of men — Satan contending for 
the Throne of Heaven. From the sixth to the ninth hour the 
unequal contest raged; and, when the banner of the Cross lay 
prostrate before the enemies of Light, and surrender came 
with the heartrending wail of the sacrificial Victim, a bugle- 
note of victory sounded in the enemy's camp. Pandemonium 
stirred from center to circumference with the revelry of 
fiends, while Jehovah bowed his head in shame at the wicked- 
ness of men. But the rejoicing in hell was of short duration. 
On the third day consternation -eized hold on the unclean 
spirits, and with waitings and gnashingB of teeth, hellish roan 
went up from the flaming pit, and the father of lies was com- 
pelled to acknowledge defeat. But, friends, no amount of dis- 
appointment can thwart his evil intentions. Checkmated at 

one point, lie brings his tactics t<> bear OH another, ami no 

description better fits the hidden resources of this arch fiend 

than that of the poet : 



278 The Lantern of Diogenes. 

" 'Whyles ranging like a roaring lion, 
For prey a' holes and corners tryin' : 
Whyles on the strong-wing' d tempest 
flyin', 

Tirlin' the kirks ; 
Whyles in the human bosom pryin', 
Unseen thou lurks.' 

"Yea, in the human bosom he lurks unseen ! Cast him out 
and turn to the sacrifice of your Maker : 

" 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlast- 
ing life.' " 

The stranger sat down and the preacher stood up in his stead. 
He was about to congratulate the congregation, but seeing 
signs of emotion in the audience, he asked for a hymn to be 
sung and exhorted his flock to repentance. With the soul- 
stirring music, the overcharged emotions burst forth in shouts 
and prayers and hosannas to the Highest. The schoolmaster 
fell upon his knees, and many others saw angels in the air and 
in the tops of the trees beckoning upward. The excitement ran 
high and many names were added that day to the church. The 
schoolmaster joined on probation, as was then the privilege; 
but he never got further, for his lifetime rationalism came to 
his rescue after the excitement was over, and he dropped back 
into his old materialistic philosophy, doubting everything, and 
died calling for more light. His end was neither peaceful nor 
happy. His school broke up, and, having no family, he wan- 
dered from home and died in the house of the stranger. 

At the end of the services the traveler was looked for, but he 
could not be found. His track was seen in the road for many 
miles, but no one had met him. To this day the little "chapel" 
stands there in the edge of the woods, and the sparse congrega- 
tion, as they collect every fourth Sunday, never cease to speak 
of the meeting when the stranger preached. 



THE END. 



APPENDIX. 



The earliest extant mention of the Wandering Jew is to be found 
in the book of the chronicles of the Abbey of St. Albans, which 
was copied and continued by Matthew Paris. He records that in 
the year 1228 "a certain Archbishop of Armenia the Greater came 
on a pilgrimage to England to see the relics of the saints and visit 
the sacred places in the kingdom, as he had done in others ; he also 
produced letters of recommendation from his Holiness the Pope to 
the religious and the prelates of the churches, in which they were 
enjoined to receive and entertain him with due reverence and honor. 
On his arrival he came to St. Albans, where he was received with all 
respect by the abbot and the monks; and at this place, being 
fatigued with his journey, he remained some days to rest himself 
and his followers, and a conversation took place between him and 
the inhabitants of the convent, by means of their inter preters, dur- 
ing which he made many inquiries relating to the religion and re- 
ligious observances of this country, and told many strange things 
concerning the countries of the East. In the course of conversation 
he was asked whether he had ever seen or heard anything of 
Joseph, a man of whom there was much talk in the world, who, 
when our Lord Buffered, was present and spoke to Him. and who is 
still alive, in evidence of the Christian faith; in reply to which a 
knight in his retinue, who was his interpreter, replied, speaking in 
French : 'My lord well knows that man, and a little before he took 
his way to the western countries the said Joseph ate at the table of 
my lord tin- Archbishop of Armenia, and ho lias often soon and con- 
versed with him.' 

"He was then asked about what had passed between Christ and 
the s;iiil Joseph; to which ho replied: 'At the time of the passion of 
Jesus <'hrist. U«. w.-is seized by the Jews, and led into the hall of 

judgment before Pilate, the Governor, that lie might lie judged by 
him on the accusation of the Jews; and Pilate, lind i mr no fault 
for which lie might sentence Him to death, said unto them. "Take 
Him and judge Him according to your law." The shouts of the 
Jews, however. Increasl og, in- at their request released onto them 
Barabbas, and delivered Jesus to them to be crucified. When, there- 
fore, the .lows were dragging Jesus forth, and had reached the door, 
Cartaphilus, a porter of the ball in Pilate's service, as Jesus was 
going out of the door, Impiously struck Him on the back with his 
hand, and said In mockery: "Go quicker, Jesus; go quicker: why 
do you loiter?" and Jesus, looking back on him with s severe conn 
tenance, said to bim, "1 am going, and you shall wait till i return." 
And according as our Lord said, this Cartaphilus Is still awaiting 



280 Appendix. 

His return. At the time of our Lord's suffering lie was thirty years 
old, and when he attains the age of a hundred years, he always re- 
turns to the same age as he was when our Lord suffered. After 
Christ's death, when the Catholic faith gained ground, this Cartaph- 
ilus was baptized by Ananias (who also baptized the Apostle Paul), 
and was called Joseph. He dwells in one or other divisions of 
Armenia, and in divers Eastern countries, passing his time amongst 
the bishops and other prelates of the Church ; he is a man of holy 
conversation, and religious ; a man of few words, and very circum- 
spect in his behavior ; for he does not speak at all unless when 
questioned by the bishops and religious ; and then he relates the 
events of olden times, and speaks of things which occurred at the 
suffering and resurrection of our Lord, and of the witnesses of the 
resurrection, namely, of those who rose with Christ, and went 
into the holy city, and appeared unto men. He also tells of the 
creed of the Apostles, and of their separation and preaching. And 
all this he relates without smiling, or levity of conversation, as one 
who is well practiced in sorrow and the fear of God, always looking 
forward with dread to the coming of Jesus Christ, lest at the Last 
Judgment he should find him in anger whom, when on his way to 
death, he had provoked to just vengeance. Numbers came to him 
from different parts of the world, enjoying his society and conver- 
sation ; and to them, if they are men of authority, he explains all 
doubts on the matters on which he is questioned. He refuses all 
gifts that are offered him, being content with slight food and cloth- 
ing.' " 

We hear no more of the Wandering Jew till the sixteenth century, 
when we hear first of him in a casual manner, as assisting a weaver. 
Robot, at the royal palace in Bohemia (1505), to find a treasure 
which had been secreted by the great-grandfather of Kobot, sixty 
years before, at which time the Jew was present. He then had the 
appearance of being a man of seventy years.* 

Curiously enough, we next hear of him in the East, where he is 
confounded with the prophet Elijah. Early in the century he ap- 
peared to Fadhilah, under peculiar circumstances. 

After the Arabs had captured the city of Elvan, Fadhilah, at the 
head of three hundred horsemen, pitched his tents, late in the 
evening, between two mountains. Fadhilah, having begun his evening 
prayer with a loud voice, heard the words "Allah akbar" (God is 
great) repeated distinctly, and each word of his prayer was fol- 
lowed in a similar manner. Fadhilah, not believing this to be the 
result of an echo, was much astonished, and cried out, "O thou ! 
whether thou art of the angel ranks, or whether thou art of some 
other order of spirits, it is well ; the power of God be with thee ; 
but if thou art a man, then let mine eyes light upon thee, that I may 
rejoice in thy presence and society." Scarcely had he spoken these 



"Gubitz, Gesellsch, 1845, No. 18. 



Appendix. 281 

words, before an aged man, with bald head, stood before him, hold- 
ing a staff in his hand, and much resembling a dervish in appearance. 
After having courteously saluted him, Fadhilah asked the old man 
who he was. Thereupon the stranger answered, "Bassi Hadhret 
Issa, I am here by command of the Lord Jesus, who has left me in 
this world that I may live therein until he comes a second time to 
earth. I wait for this Lord, who is the Fountain of Happiness, and 
in obedience to his command I dwell behind yon mountain." When 
Fadhilah heard these words, he asked when the Lord Jesus would ap- 
pear ; and the old man replied that his appearing would be at the 
end of the world, at the Last Judgment. But this only increased 
Padhilah's curiosity, so that he inquired the signs of the approach 
of the end of all things, whereupon Zerib Bar Elia gave him an ac- 
count of general, social, and moral dissolution, which would be the 
climax of this world's history.* 

In 1547 he was seen in Europe, if we are to believe the follow- 
ing narration : 

"Paul von Eitzen, doctor of the Holy Scriptures, and Bishop of 
Schleswig,t related as true for some years past, that when he was 
young, having studied at Wittemberg, he returned home to his 
parents in Hamburg in the winter of the year 1547, and that on the 
following Sunday, in church, he observed a tall man, with his hair 
hanging over his shoulders, standing barefoot, during the sermon. 
over against the pulpit, listening with deepest attention to the dis- 
course, and, whenever the name of Jesus was mentioned, bowing 
himself profoundly and humbly, with sighs and beating of the breast 
He had no other clothing, in the bitter cold of the winter, except a 
pair of hose which wore in tatters about lhs feet, and a coat with a 
girdle which reached to his feet; and his general appearance was 

that of a man of fifty years. And many people, some of high de 
gree and title, have seen this same man in England, France. Italy. 

Hungary, Persia, Spain. Poland, Moscow. Lapland, Sweden. Denmark. 
Scotland, and other places. 

"Every one wondered over the man. Now, after the sermon, the 
said doctor Inquired diligently where the stranger was to he found; 
and when he had soughl him on!, he Inquired of him privately whence 

he came, and hOW l'»iiu r that winter he had been in the place. There- 
upon be replied, modestly, that he was a .lew by birth, a oative of 
Jerusalem, by mime Ahasverus, by trade a shoemaker; lie had been 
present ;>t the « rn<i ti \ i< m of Christ, and had lived over since, travel 
Ing through various lands and cities, the which he substantiated bj 
accounts he gave; he related also the circumstances <>f Christ's 
transference from Pilate to Herod, and the final crucifixion, together 



•HeTbelot. Bibl. Orient, ni. p. B07. 

H'aiii v. Eitzen was born Janus at Hamburg; in appointed 

chief preacher for Schleswig, ;»'"i died February 86, i Ifemoi P 

Eitzen. Hamb. 1844.) 



282 Appendix. 



with other details not recorded in the Evangelists and historians ; 
he gave accounts of the changes of government in many countries, 
especially of the East, through several centuries ; and moreover he 
detailed the labors and deaths of the holy Apostles of Christ most 
circumstantially. 

"Now, when Doctor Paul v. Eitzen heard this with profound aston- 
ishment, on account of its incredible novelty, he inquired further, 
in order that he might obtain more accurate information. Then the 
man answered that he had lived in Jerusalem at the time of the 
crucifixion of Christ, whom he had regarded as a deceiver of the peo- 
ple, and a heretic; he had seen Him with his own eyes, and had done 
his best, along with others, to bring this deceiver, as he regarded 
Him, to justice, and to have Him put out of the way. When the 
sentence had been pronounced by Pilate, Christ was about to be 
dragged past his house; then he ran home, and called together his 
household to have a look at Christ, and see what sort of a person He 
was. 

"This having been done, he had his little child on his arm, and 
was standing in his doorway, to have a sight of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

"As, then, Christ was led by, bowed under the weight of the heavy 
cross, He tried to rest a little, and stood still a moment; but the 
shoemaker, in zeal and rage, and for the sake of obtaining credit 
among the other Jews, drove the Lord Christ forward, and told Him 
to hasten on His way. Jesus, obeying, looked at him, and said, 'I 
shall stand and rest, but thou shalt go till the last day.' At these 
words the man set down the child; and, unable to remain where he 
was, he followed Christ, and saw how cruelly He was crucified, 
how He suffered, how He died. As soon as this had taken place, 
it came upon him suddenly that he could no more return to Jerusalem 
nor see again his wife and child, but must go forth into foreign 
lands, one after another, like a mournful pilgrim. Now, when, years 
after, he returned to Jerusalem, he found it ruined and utterly razed, 
so that not one stone was left standing on another ; and he could 
not recognize former localities, 

"He believes that it is God's purpose, in thus driving him about 
in miserable life, and preserving him undying, to present him before 
the Jews at the end, as a living token, so that the godless and un- 
believing may remember the death of Christ, and be turned to re- 
pentance. For his part he would well rejoice were God in Heaven 
to release him from this vale of tears. After this conversation, Doc- 
tor Paul v. Eitzen, along with the rector of the school of Hamburg, 
who was well read in history, and a traveler, questioned him about 
events which had taken place in the East since the death of Christ, 
and he was able to give them much information on many ancient mat- 
ters ; so that it was impossible not to be convinced of the truth of 
his story, and to see what seems impossible with men is, after all, 
possible with God. 



Appendix. 283 

"Since the Jew has had his life extended, he has become silent 
and reserved, and only answers direct questions. When invited to be- 
come any one's guest, he eats little, and drinks in great moderation ; 
then hurries on, never remaining long in one place. When at Ham- 
burg. Dantzig, and elsewhere, money has been offered him, he never 
rook more than two shillings (fourpence, one farthing), and at once 
distributed it to the poor, as token that he needed no money, for 
God would provide for him, as he rued the sins be had committed in 
ignorance. 

"During the period of his stay in Hamburg and Dantzig he was 
never seen to laugh. In whatever land he traveled he spoke its 
language, and when he spoke Saxon, it was like- a native Saxon. 
Many people came from different places to Hamburg and Dantzig 
in order to see and hear this man. and were convinced that the 
providence of God was exercised in this individual in a very remark- 
able manner. He gladly listened to God's word, or heard it spoken 
of always with great gravity and compunction, and he ever reverenced 
with sighs the pronunciation of the name of God, or of Jesus Christ, 
and could not endure to hear curses ; but whenever he heard any one 
swear by God's death or pains, he waxed indignant, and exclaimed, 
with vehemence and with si.L'hs. 'Wretched man and miserable crea- 
ture, thus to misuse the name of thy Lord and God, and His bit- 
ter sufferings and passion. Hadst thou seen, as I have, how heavy 
;md bitter were the pangs and wounds of thy Lord, endured for thee 
and tor me, thou wouldst rather undergo great pain thyself tban thus 
take Iiis sacred name in vain!' 

"Such is the account given to me by Doctor Paul von Eitzen. with 
many circumstantial proofs, and corroborated by certain of my own 
old acquaintances who saw this same individual with their own eyes 
in Hamburg." 

The statement that the WaDdering Jew appeared in Lubeck in 1601 
docs not. tally with the more precise chronicle of Henrietta Bangert, 
which gives: "Die l). Januarii Anno Mix' 1 1.. adriotatum reliquii 
LubeocB fiiissc .1 mid urn ilium immortalem, qui %e Christi crucifl&iorU 

int( ifiiissc a IV nun /•//."* 

in ii;<»i he seems to have appeared in Paris. Rudolph Botoreus 
says, under this date: "I fear lest I be accused of giving ear to 
old wives' fables, If I Inseri In these pages whal is reported all 
over ESurope of the Jew, coeval with the Savior Christ; however, 
nothing is more common, and our popular histories have aol scrupled 

to assert it. Following the lead of those who wrote OUT annals. I 

may s.-iy thai he who appeared not iii one century only, in Spain, 
[taly, and Germany, was also in this year scon and recognized as the 
same Individual who bad appeared in Hamburg, anno MDLXVI. 



n.\ Bai pert Comment, de Ortu, VII u Colerl, I. Cti. Lubec. 



284 Appendix. 

The common people, bold in spreading reports, relate many things 
of him ; and this I allude to, lest anything should be left unsaid." 1 

J. O. Bulenger puts the date of the Hamburg visit earlier. "It was 
reported at this time that a Jew of the time of Christ was wander- 
ing without food and drink, having for a thousand and odd years been 
a vagabond and outcast, condemned by God to rove, because he, 
of that generation of vipers, was the first to cry out for the cruci- 
fixion of Christ and the release of Barabbas; and also because soon 
after, when Christ, panting under the burden of the rood, sought 
to rest before his workshop (he was a cobbler), the fellow ordered 
Him off with acerbity. Thereupon Christ replied, 'Because thou 
grudgest Me such a moment of rest, I shall enter into My rest, but 
thou shalt wander restless.' At once, frantic and agitated, he fled 
through the whole earth, and on the same account to this day he 
journeys through the world. It was this person who was seen in 
Hamburg in MDLXIV. Credat Judceus Apella! I did not see him, 
or hear anything authentic concerning him, at that time when I was 
in Paris." 2 

A curious little book, 3 written against the quackery of Paracelsus, 
by Leonard Doldius, a Nurnberg physician, and translated into Latin 
and augmented, by Andreas Libavius, doctor and physician of Roten- 
berg, alludes to the same story, and gives the Jew a new name no- 
where else met with. After having referred to a report that Para- 
celsus was not dead, but was seated alive, asleep or napping, in his 
sepulchre at Strasburg, preserved from death by some of his spe- 
cifics, Labavius declares that he would sooner believe in the old man, 
the Jew, Ahasverus, wandering over the world, called by some But- 
tadreus, and otherwise, again, by others. 

He is said to have appeared in Naumburg, but the date is not 
given ; he was noticed in church, listening to the sermon. After 
the service he was questioned, and he related his story. On this occa- 
sion he received presents from the burghers. 4 In 1633 he was again 
in Hamburg. 5 In the year 1640, two citizens, living in the Gerber- 
strasse, in Brussels, were walking in the Sonian wood, when they en- 
countered an aged man, whose clothes were in tatters and of an an- 
tiquated appearance. They invited him to go with them to a house 
of refreshment, and he went with them, but would not seat himself, 
remaining on foot to drink. When he came before the doors with the 
two burghers, he told them a great deal ; but they were mostly stories 
of events which had happened many hundred years before. Hence, 
the burghers gathered that their companion was Isaac Laquedem, 
the Jew who had refused to permit our Blessed Lord to rest for a 
moment at his doorstep, and they left him full of terror. In 1642 he 



1 R. Botoreus, Comm. Histor. Hi, p. 305. 

2 J. C. Bulenger, Historia sui Temporis, p. 357. 

3 Praxis Alchymise. Francfurti, MDCIV. 8vo. 
4 Mitternacht, Diss, in Johann. xxi. 19. 
6 Mitternacht, ut supra. 



Appendix. 285 

is reported to have visited Leipzig. On the 22d of July. 1721. he ap- 
peared at the gates of the city of Munich.* About the eud of the 
seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth, an impostor, 
calling himself the Wandering Jew, attracted attention in England. 
and was listened to by the ignorant, and despised by the educated. 
He, however, managed to thrust himself into the notice of the nobil- 
ity, who half in jest, half in curiosity, questioned him, and paid 
him as they might a juggler. He declared that he had been an 
officer of the Sanhedrim, and that he had struck Christ as he left the 
judgment hall of Pilate. He remembered all the Apostles, and de- 
scribed their personal appearance, their clothes, and their peculiar- 
ities. He spoke many languages, claimed the power of healing the 
sick, and asserted that he had traveled nearly all over the world. 
Those who heard him were perplexed by his familiarity with foreign 
tongues and places. Oxford and Cambridge sent professors to ques- 
tion him, and to discover the imposition, if any. An English noble- 
man conversed with him in Arabic. The mysterious stranger told his 
questioner in that language that historical works were not to be 
relied upon. And on being asked his opinion of Mahomet, he replied 
that he had been acquainted with the father of the prophet, and that 
he dwelt at Ormuz. As for Mahomet, he believed him to have been 
a man of intelligence; once when he heard the prophet deny that 
Christ was crucified, he answered abruptly by telling him he was a 
witness to the truth of that event. He related also that he was in 
Rome when Nero set it on fire; he had known Saladin, Tamerlane, 
Bajazeth, Eterlane, and could give minute details of the history of 
the Crusades, t 

Perhaps, of all the myths which originated in the middle ages. 
none is more Btriking than that we have been considering: indeed. 
there is something so calculated to arrest the attention and to excite 
the imagination in the outline of the story, that it is remarkable 
that we should find an interval of three centuries elapse between its 
first: Introduction Into Europe by Matthew Paris and Philip Monskos, 
and its general acceptance in the sixteenth century. As a myth, its 

roots lie in that grea1 mystery of human life which is an enigma 
never solved, and ever originating speculation. 

What was life? Was it of necessity limited to fourscore years. 

or could it be extended Indefinitely? were questions curious minds 
never wearied of asking. And so the mythology of the past teemed 
with legends of favored or accursed mortals, who had reached beyond 
the term of days sel to most men. Borne had discovered the water 
of life, the fountain of perpetual youth, and were ever renewing their 
strength. Others had dared the power of (Sod, and were, therefore, 
sentenced to feel the weight of His displeasure, without tasting the 
repose of death. 



'Honnayr, Taschenbucb. 1884, p. 219. 
fCalmel . Dictonn. de la Bible, t. 11, p. \; 



286 Appendix. 



John the Divine slept at Ephesus, untouched by corruption, with the 
ground heaving over his breast as he breathed, waiting the summons 
to come forth and witness against Antichrist. The seven sleepers 
reposed in a cave, and centuries glided by like a watch in the night. 
The monk of Hildesheim, doubting how with God a thousand years 
could be as yesterday, listened to the melody of a bird in the green 
wood during three minutes, and found that in three minutes three 
hundred years had flown. Joseph of Arimathsea, in the blessed city 
of Sarras, draws perpetual life from the Saint Graal ; Merlin sleeps 
and sighs in an old tree, spellbound of Vivien. Charlemagne and 
Barbarossa wait, crowned and armed, in the heart of the mountain, 
till the time comes for the release of the Fatherland from despotism. 
And, on the other hand, the curse of a deathless life was passed on 
the Wild Huntsman, because he desired to chase the red deer for 
evermore; on the Captain of the Phantom Ship, because he vowed 
he would double the Cape whether God willed it or not ; on the Man 
in the Moon, because he gathered sticks during the Sabbath rest; 
on the dancers of Kolbeck, because they desired to spend eternity in 
their mad gambols. 



ADDENDUM. 



For the benefit of readers who never knew Mr. Eliot, I 
subjoin an account of his "Last Days on Earth," written by a 
man who, with too hasty and prejudicant ears, notes a wail 
de profundus rather than a te Deum laudamus. 

The old man's rebuke to this flaminical bramble should have 
sent him to Mat. xxiii : 15, and vii : 1, 2. Mr. Eliot's Hetero- 
doxy is the Orthodoxy of to-day. 

JOHN GHOST ELIOT'S LAST DAYS ON EARTH. 

Pitt County, March IS, 1SS2. 

Editor Messenger: — Since the publication of Rev. Mr. Marable's 
article in your paper, in which the facts of Mr. Eliot's life and 
character were very faithfully set forth, particularly his views of 
Christianity, I have been solicited to publish the facts of his last 
illness. 

It is but natural for an inquisitive public to desire the last news 
of the views of so notable a man. And believing there is a great 
truth expressed in the lines — 

"The pebble in the streamlet scant 

Has changed the course of many a river; 
The dewdrop on the tiny plant 

Has warped the giant oak forever." 

I have gathered all the data he lias left us. and give Dr. W. L. 
Bes1 and myself, who were eye-witnesses, as authority for the cor- 
rectness of the following statement: 

Mr. Bliol died November 13, 1881 ; twenty-one days previous in* 
came to Dr. Best for medical treatment. He had had phymosis sev- 
enty-one years. An operation was performed; 11 healed kindly and 
he was entirely well of that at death. He also had had hemorrhoids 

about fifty years, and double hernia about forty years, but the cause 

Of his death was senile-dia rrhea. for wliirli there is qo Cure. 

During his illness I visited him several times, and always found 

him quiet and patient In Buffering. At one <>f my tirst visits he 
Incidentally spoke of dying. I Immediately directed his mind to 
Christ as our merciful Savior and only hope. His reply was con- 
cerning the Impossibility <>f the scriptural statement of the conception 
of Jesus being true, i then asked If he did aot believe what the 
Scriptures said concerning the conception, birth, life, death, burial, 
resurrection, ascension and mediatl I Jesus Christ was true. 

19 



288 Addendum. 

He replied: "I believe everything in that book, but don't under- 
stand it." The subject was then pressed further, when he said with 
some feeling: "Harper, never try to press your views on anybody, 
for if you convince a man against his will, he'll be of the same 
opinion still." 

About four months prior to this, in a conversation with Dr. Best, 
he said : "About the best prayer I ever heard was an old school- 
teacher's prayer, who, when he apprehended that death was near at 
hand, exclaimed, 'O God, if there is a God, have mercy on my soul, if 
I have a soul.' " He did not say who the school-teacher was. 

Ten days previous to his death, in conversation with Dr. Best, he 
compared himself to a growing stalk of cotton, by saying: "The 
stalk is composed of fourteen different elements, ten of which are 
derived from the earth, and four from the air. When it dies, the 
parts from the earth return from whence they came, and the four are 
given back to the air, just as you and I will do." Conveying the idea 
clearly that he had no more immortality than the cotton stalk. 

His tenacity to life, and the courage with which he fought the dis- 
ease that was taking him away, were wonderful. He seemed hard to 
convince that he must soon die, for only a few days before death I 
encouraged him to make a wise distribution of his property, and he 
said "he had stood a certain man's security, and with the proceeds 
from the farm this year (1881), I want to pay that security debt, 
cover my house and get me a set of teeth." 

Two days previous to his death Dr. Best entered his room, and 
hearing him speaking in an undertone, asked him what he was saying, 
and he replied, "Repeating a prayer." The doctor being very much 
surprised at that, requested him to tell what he said when he prayed, 
but he excused himself by saying : "I am out of breath, but will tell 
you all about it when I can breathe more easily." But he died 
without telling. 

Alas ! how prone we are to "put off till to-morrow what ought to 
be done to-day," and prayer and obedience to Christ is often post- 
poned until too late ! too late ! ! 

Six hours before death, the doctor heard him making a noise, and, 
entering his room, asked what was the matter. He replied : "I am 
lost." The doctor asked: "In what way are you lost, Mr. Eliot?" 
He did not reply. The doctor asked if he knew where he was, and 
he replied, "Yes, here in my roonu" "Whose house are you at?" 
"Yours, Dr. Best." The doctor asked if he meant his soul was lost, 
and he made an indefinite answer, and turned the conversation to his 
body, asking the doctor to dissect his body, articulate his skeleton, 
and donate it to some good literary school. The doctor told him this 
was impossible, from the press of business. He then requested the 
doctor to have a coffin built of fat lightwood and bury him. The 



Addendum. 289 

doctor asked the privilege of having a nice coffin for him. and he 
replied : "I practiced no pride in life and don't wish it in death." 

All this conversation took place in the last five or six hours of his 
life, and he remained conscious nnto the end. His last words were: 

■•Attend to my necessities." 
• Reader, draw your own conclusions. 

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." — 

Heb. x :31. 

H. D. Harper. 



DEC 27 1910 



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